Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]

Orders of the Day — NATIONAL INSURANCE (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

11.5 a.m.

Mr. Derek Coombs: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
This is a small Bill dealing with a major problem in the field of national insurance—the notorious earnings rule. In presenting the Bill I feel a bit like David in the presence of Goliath, with the added disadvantage that I cannot possibly be expected to dispose of him at one shot. It will take the big battalions to do that.
Many thousands of our senior citizens bitterly resent the fact that their retirement pensions are reduced or totally extinguished when they go on working after pensionable age, in a manner far more penal than the most burdensome taxation. It may be 30 years since Beveridge first plotted a retirement pension to replace the old-age pension, but it clearly takes at least a generation to remove the widespread notion that a pension is a man's due on his 65th birthday, and a woman's on her 60th birthday, instead of only on retirement, as defined and operated by the earnings rule.
The purpose of the Bill is to double from £2 to £4 the present band, immediately above the earnings limit, within which a pensioner's earnings are treated rather more favourably and justly. I would not argue that the earnings rule is not an essential complement to the thinking behind the retirement condition as it now stands, for otherwise there would be nothing to prevent a token retirement followed by a quick return to regular work and wages paid together with full pension.
Nevertheless, why should not Beveridge be looked at again What are we afraid of? Successive Governments have never allowed the National Insurance Advisory Committee to consider the abolition of the earnings rule. Its terms of reference, both in 1956 and 1967, have always been very narrow. Regrettably, this has precluded a thorough review of Beveridge's retirement condition, to see whether it stands the test of time and still maintains the principle of fairness, so important when it was originally conceived.
Abolishing the earnings rule, we are told, would cost the National Insurance Fund about £110 million. The bulk of this sum going to hundreds of thousands of people who are up to five years past retirement age but still in full-time work. However, I believe this to be a high estimate of the cost involved to public funds, because it does not take into account the fact that this would be mainly taxed income which, assuming that the hours of work are not dramatically changed, would yield back, say, 30 per cent. to the Treasury. In any case we would all agree that whether one is dealing with £80 million or £110 million, the huge sum involved only lends itself to a major change of Government policy. It is a political decision which clearly does not fall within the scope of a Private Member's Bill.
This Measure, which I have the pleasure and privilege of presenting to the House, affects only 14,000 retired pensioners and goes as far as we think practicable in the circumstances to reduce their natural feeling of resentment and seeks to strike a balance between what we take to be the view of the majority of hon. Members, that the earnings rule should be abolished altogether, and the policy and practice of successive Governments in keeping in but mitigating its injurious effects.
Successive Governments have periodically raised the earnings limit—indicating the amount of work and wages which can be ignored without infringing the retirement conditions—since it was originally fixed by the National Insurance Act 1946. Last September's rise to £9.50, representing 30 per cent, of average earnings—the same percentage as 1967—was the ninth increase since 1946. Not only are the Government to be congratulated on continuing to raise the earnings limit,


but they also raised the maximum permitted earnings of an under 60-year-old wife of a retirement pensioner from £3.20 to £9.50, and have improved the increments whereby a person who continues working after pensionable age can earn a bigger pension when he does retire. These increments will be included in the annual review of basic pensions when the Government's extensive plans for the reform of pensions take effect.
Nevertheless, let me say straightaway that however fine all these steps may be, there is still a fundamental well of discontent among retired people which we cannot and must not ignore. So at this point I would like to explain briefly both the background to the heart of this Bill and why my co-sponsors and I believe it to be so essential.
Since 1956 the earnings limit has been followed by a narrow zone of earnings in which, for every 10p earned, 5p has been taken away from the pension. This proportionate band so-called was recommended by the National Insurance Advisory Committee in its 1956 report as one way of helping to relax the earnings rule. The Committee thought that such proportionate deductions would encourage pensioners to take employment or take on more and reduce resentment at the earnings rule.
This band is then followed by the 100 per cent, deduction, which is what generates so much bitterness. Ironically this absolute deduction was never envisaged or recommended by Beveridge at any level of earnings, but it was carried through regardless by the Government of the day.
However, the Advisory Committee recommended a £1 band which was accepted and included in the National Insurance Act, 1956, an Act which started as Sir Edwin Leather's Private Member's Bill, which is the first and only time that a Private Member's Bill has been able to amend the National Insurance scheme but not, we hope, the last.
Hon. Members will recall that after 11 years the Advisory Committee took another look at how the earnings limit for retirement pensions had been working. In its 1967 report it recommended that the £1 band should be extended, as pension rates had doubled and a rise

of over 70 per cent. had taken place in average earnings. The promoters of the Bill contend that after five years it is now time to double the proportionate band again, from £2 to £4, on the same grounds, that pension rates and average earnings have increased enough to justify it, but most particularly prices.
Now that the Government have announced a further welcome increase to a £6·75 pension next October, the retirement pension will have risen almost 70 per cent. between June, 1967, and October, 1972. Average earnings increasing at the present rate will be roughly 66 per cent. higher next October. But retail prices are an even better and much more important index when it comes to seeing how retirement pensioners are faring. When the £1 band operated over the 11 years from 1956 to 1967, prices rose 36 per cent. Since then, with the £2 band in force, they will have risen 36·6 per cent. by next October. If one takes the increases in the retail price index for pensionable households there is an even more dramatic rise since 1967. But whichever index one uses, it is clearly demonstrated that prices have risen more during the last five years than they did during the whole of the 11 years before 1967. That is the main argument for introducing this Bill now. In short, reducing the review period from 11 years to five years because of price inflation.
Financially about 5,500 pensioners now earning between £11·50 and £17·50 a week would have a net gain in income of up to £1 a week, while some 8,500 pensioners earning less than £13·50 could work for more hours and also achieve some extra net gain in income. This means that about 14,000 pensioners whose pensions are reduced or totally extinguished by the earnings rule at present stand to gain by an extension to the £4 band. It seems that very few of the 280,000 people in the 65 to 70 age range—60 to 65 for women—who have not retired would feel disposed to do so. Most of them are continuing in jobs that they had before they reached retirement age and are probably earning well in excess of £17·50 a week, at which point, with a £4band, the £6 pension would be extinguished totally.
The cost to the National Insurance Fund would be a measly £250,000 a year


compared with about £750,000 a year that it cost to raise the earnings limit last September. Any consequential costs in other National Insurance benefits would be inconsiderable.
The question of the date at which the £4 band would best be introduced is one which we should like to leave to the discretion of the Government, although the figures I have given seem to indicate that next October, coinciding with the higher pension, would be opportune and none too early.
There is very little to suggest that by encouraging retirement pensioners to stay at work we should be aggravating the serious unemployment problem. In its 1967 report the National Insurance Advisory Committee thought it likely that increases in the earnings limit
… result in somewhat more work being done by some pensioners".
But if successive Governments raise the earnings limit, they appear to be prepared to take that risk themselves. In any case, one is only talking about roughly 14,000 people in this context. Experience suggests generally not so much that they change jobs but rather that they either enjoy the increased financial benefit without any extra hours of work or that the hours of work are increased only marginally on a part-time basis within the same employment.
We owe it to individual men and women to see that they have a fair deal. It is more a question of equity than economics and more a question of fairness than finance. The Bill is designed deliberately to be a modest proposal and it maintains the percentage relationship between the extinguishment point and average earnings at about the same level as last October. It is recognised clearly that if the extinguishment point were raised to a level too close to average earnings it would cease to have any validity whatsoever and thus, happily or unhappily, the earnings rule would in effect abolish itself.
I hope that the Government will not confine their reply to their record in increasing the earnings limit, which admittedly is first class. This would be irrelevant because it has nothing to do with this Bill which does not seek to raise the limit but only to expand the band and, as a consequence, marginally

increase the extinguishment point by £1. Equally, one can always advance arguments that there are greater priorities, although I think that in the context of such a small sum that would be difficult to justify. With this kind of money, to defend staying as we are because of more urgent priorities would seem to me to be the weakest argument of all. It is an argument which has been advanced by successive Governments since time immemorial, but it cannot be justified on grounds of equity in this case. The principle of a proportionate band throughout was clearly accepted by Beveridge in 1942. Therefore it is our duty now to go some way towards making it relevant and fair in terms of 1972.
So far, rightly, our Government have concentrated a great deal of help on the very poor, but here we have a group of people who feel neglected in that they cannot understand why much of what they earn is lost. They are bewildered and resentful, and all of this at an age when surely one is entitled to some peace of mind.
I hope and believe that there will not be any squalid political manoeuvrings to brush this under the carpet, that the Bill will not be used as an excuse for a wide-ranging debate so that it is talked out. It covers only a very narrow band. I hope that all hon. Members who support will demonstrate their concern for the elderly by the brevity of their speeches and the determination of their presence. I believe that we have a duty to act, and act quickly in order to show that we do care, and to demonstrate that Parliament is not always the servant, but can be master in its own House.

11.20 a.m.

Mr. David James: I am very happy to be called, for I wholeheartedly support the Bill. For a brief period I want to commend what I regard as the humanitarian rather than the financial aspects of the Bill.
It has been my experience that time tends to hang heavily on the hands of people who retire. This is particularly true of those who acquire manual skills and crafts rather than office skills. Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) implied, there are many spheres in


which elderly people fit more appropriately to the scene than younger people.
For example, in my own village I can think of a number of occupations which could well be fulfilled by elderly people if only they had the financial incentive to do so. The first is gardening. Many people get their greatest solace from gardening. I admit that all my leisure in my constituency is spent on jobbing gardening. However, the day will come when I can no longer do all my jobbing gardening. I shall get older, but the garden will not get smaller, and I shall be only too delighted to find some elderly person to help me with the jobbing gardening. Throughout the nation there are scores of elderly people who derive enormous satisfaction from gardening and there are scores of people who have gardens which are too big for them to maintain. If we could marry this demand for labour with the demand for services, many people would be happier.
Another craft which seems to get people by the throat, in that they do not want to give it up, is hedging. An old man who lives in my village is never happier than when given a couple of chains of hedges to cut and lay. It is a dying craft, but it appears to exert an irresistible attraction to the man who does it. Those of us who are interested in seeing the countryside retain its splendour and neatness must surely hope that these elderly men, who willingly and gladly trim hedges, will be enabled to do so without suffering a financial penalty.
Other workers who obviously hate retiring because they have been busy with their hands all their working lives are carpenters and workers in wood. Until fairly recently there was in my village a retired joiner who suffered from that most tragic of diseases, emphysema, which meant that he could not cross a room without getting out of breath. We managed to arrange an informal association in the village whereby every week someone would take down a piece of furniture which needed a little lacquer inlay or something. This dear fellow died in the middle of renewing a chipped lacquer inlay for me. There is no doubt that the last 12 months of that grieviously ill man's life were made happier by virtue

of the fact that people were prepared to bring him work.
Finally, I have in mind a splendid 80-year old who lives not far from me who goes around almost every week collecting binder twine from farms. From that binder twine he makes an extraordinary assortment of shopping bags, waste paper baskets, and so on.
It could be argued that all these people do this sort of thing for the love of it and could well do without the cash. However, for anyone who has worked for money for 50 years, the cash reward is a recognition of his skill in his craft. People feel entitled to it, quite rightly in my view, in recognition of the many years that they have worked to perfect a skill which they wish to continue exercising part-time in their retirement, both to help their follow citizens in their neighbourhood and to make life just a little easier for themselves and their wives.
I am aware that I have talked entirely of the male crafts. I have done so because in my estimation the ladies, God bless them, never retire. As long as they have husbands and houses to keep going they remain employed. However, I think that the quality of life and happiness of a large number of elderly people, quite apart from their cash situation, would be improved if the Measure proposed by my hon. Friend were accepted by the Government.

11.25 a.m.

Mr. W. E. Garrett: I am not opposed to the Bill, but I think that the picture painted by the hon. Member for Dorset, North (Mr. David James) is a bit too rosy. Although modest, this is the type of Bill which, if carried, will encourage people to go on working.
I do not want to widen this debate, but we have situations in certain areas of the country which are not so rural and rustic as the hon. Gentleman implied. There are hard, harsh industrial areas of the country where many people are unemployed, and some of those people would look upon the Bill as an attempt to keep in employment those who should normally be retired. We could spend some time discussing why people, such as the characters mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, should carry on working at such an age and should not be encouraged to retire earlier.
The fact that the Bill has been brought in this morning clearly indicates that pensions are not high enough. I think that most of us recognise that if pensions were higher there would not be the incentive for these people to carry on working any longer than necessary. At a time when we should encourage earlier retirement as part of the exercise of bringing down the number of unemployed, this admittedly modest Measure, involving about 14,000 people, will in some respects encourage people to carry on working.
Another point that should be borne in mind is that some of the people who carry on working are often used as a source of cheap labour. Many small-time employers, particularly in the jobbing building trade, like these people to work for them—admittedly, they are often good craftsmen—because they do not pay them high wages. In fact, they often pay below the scale permitted in building workers' agreements, to take that trade as an example. These people are often used as a source of cheap labour in filling stations and by private people for jobbing in their gardens, and the rate for the job is never paid.

Mr. David James: I think that the hon. Member has missed one point which I tried to get across; namely that many elderly people do not want to retire because they like working. One has only to look at the composition of the House of Commons to realise that this proposition is true.

Mr. Garrett: I recognise that men and women, by their very instinct and nature, like to work. It is also a recognition of the fact that this category of pensioners who carry on beyond normal retirement age is often unattuned to the art of retirement. We all know that a lot of time has been spent by people in large companies conditioning people's minds—I do not say that in a nasty sense—as to how best to use their retirement. I see no reason why a man who has been a bricklayer for 50 years and carries on until he is 70 and gets these additional earnings, should not, at the age of 61 or 62, retire before the normal retirement age of 65 and pursue some other job, outlet or satisfaction in his life. I appreciate that this is widening the scope of the debate.
As I said earlier, I am not opposed to the Bill. It is rightly said by the sponsor that it is a modest Measure. However, in fairness I should point out that it will not be received with any degree of large-scale satisfaction in the regions of the country which I have mentioned.

11.30 a.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Stewart-Smith: Over the years I have received many representations for reform on this subject. The people concerned are deeply grateful to the Government for easing this rule already, but the Government ought to know that there are people like myself who want to see the earnings rule abolished altogether. Even though it would cost £110 million, the Government allocate £1,200 million to cleaning up rivers, and one has to get the priority right. It will be said by the Government that this is not a high priority, that it is a trifling matter and that we ought to let sleeping dogs lie. We cannot accept that, because we ought to have some sympathy for the plight of these people.
I must take issue with the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Garrett) on a small matter. Much of the work that is available for these old people does not pose the threat of increasing unemployment. A lot of it is repetitive, dull work for which they are required only one or two hours a day, or perhaps half a day a week. Therefore, it does not pose a major threat to employment.
Self-evidently, the Bill will increase the income of pensioners. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. David James) about the therapeutic value of keeping people in work. If they want to work, they can do so. There is no element of compulsion. If they work it will benefit British industry, and thereby the whole of our nation.
Our party believes that the common good gains from the individual's natural aspirations to economic advancement. We must, as a party, be true to that. Financial inducements must be given to encourage effort. At present there are laws which specifically operate against such a view and cause enforced idleness. People want to work but, because of these laws, do not do so, and, as has


been said, the situation is aggravated by inflation.
I beseech the Government to overrule the advice which they will undoubtedly get from the Treasury and the Inland Revenue that this is tedious and administratively upsetting. I hope that if my hon. Friend is not able to support the Bill, he will at least give an indication of sympathy towards it. I hope that the Government will decide to support the Measure, and I shall myself.

11.33 a.m.

Mr. R. A. McCrindle: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) on having brought forward this Measure, which I support. Before giving my reasons for doing so, perhaps I may refer to what the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Garrett) said.
I think that the hon. Gentleman was in danger of broadening the debate beyond what anyone would wish when discussing this modest Measure, but I understand his fear that in doing something for the category of people described in the Bill we are preventing younger people who are unemployed from obtaining the jobs which older people are doing. That is his fear, and it is a hark back to the discussion that we had in the House on another Bill not long ago. I must be careful not to get out of order by seeming to be discussing two Bills at the same time.
I think that it is germane to what we are discussing to say to the hon. Gentleman that, while I understand what animated his speech, I am not convinced that to bring down the retirement age, or to reduce the number of people in the category that we are describing this morning, would be of any material advantage to the 30 and 40-year-olds in his constituency on whose behalf he speaks so eloquently.
On a more light-hearted note, I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. David James). He seemed to say that he had a liking for hedging. I thought that that was a dangerous admission for a politician to make.
I support the Measure, for two reasons. First, it is five years, according to my researches, since there was any altera-

tion in deductions within the band of earnings that we are discussing. Secondly, having improved benefits for many categories of people since they took office, the Government should now turn their attention to helping those who are able and willing to help themselves. As I understand the social philosophy of this side of the House, it is to provide ever-more generous benefits to those who are worst off and to encourage the strong, by tax incentives, to create the wealth to pay for them. As in all shorthand, that no doubt omits many qualifying factors, but it is a not-unfair statement of the approach of this side of the House to social policy.
In the Bill we are dealing with a category which seems to fall almost between the two, the truly needy, and the truly strong. We are dealing with people who have earned their retirement pension but who either find it inadequate and need to supplement it or wish to remain in active employment because, for them, leisure is not the panacea that it is for others.
I have always felt that to force a person to go into retirement by convincing him that it is something that it is not quite proper not to want to do is not part of a policy that should animate us. I believe that there are two distinct categories of persons about whom we are speaking. I think that we should commend them for the initiative which they show in being prepared to continue to supplement their retirement income, and I believe that it is in line with the philosophy of this side of the House on social policy that it should be rewarded.
The Government, having earned the gratitude of the chronically sick, the over-80s. and the poorest workpeople by their actions so far, are today being asked to provide an incentive to comparatively better-off retired people. A few years ago selectivity was the "in" word when we were discussing the social services. It is surprising how these "in" words tend to fall into comparative disuse. If selectivity still means anything in regard to the approach of this House, let alone the Government, to the social services, it surely means just the sense of priority that I am trying to outline.

Mr. Brian O'Malley: It also means, as we see from the policies


being pursued by the Government, that year by year an increasing number of people, including those in full-time work, are put on means-tested benefits, which they resent.

Mr. McCrindle: If the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends when they were in Government, or since they have been on those benches, to which they are welcome, had been able to put forward any proposition effectively to eliminate means tests—and I do not deny that there is a proliferation of them—in order to make sure that benefit was directed to those who needed it most we would have been as pleased to have heard that from them when they were the Government as we would now that they are the Opposition.

Mr. O'Malley: Mr. O'Malley rose——

Mr. McCrindle: Rather than give way, may I tell the hon. Gentleman that I do not think that he will have great difficulty in catching the eye of the Chair, in view of the absence of his colleagues. No doubt he will regale us later and tell us, albeit belatedly, how a future Labour Government will do what a previous Labour Government failed to do.
The philosophy which animates me—and I say this unashamedly—is that the neediest have to be looked after first with increased benefits. Thathas been done in many respects, and now we must provide an incentive to people who are prepared to help themselves. It may be asked, why not abolish the earnings rule altogether? My hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. Geoffrey Stewart-Smith) said that he was in favour of that. It is an attractive proposition, but, in my view—I fear that I am probably in a minority among my hon. Friends in saying it—there is in a retirement pension a certain assumption that the person will have retired. However, that is quite different from saying that we should not take an entirely fresh look at the whole business of the earnings rule. It is just that I consider that we should be unwise to say that the earnings rule should be abolished without saying necessarily that anything should take its place. Certainly, an examination of the earnings rule, an inquiry into whether it is the best way to operate the system today, is long overdue.
If the Government were to resist the Bill today—I hope that they will not—I should much prefer their objection to be on the basis that they are embarking on a wide-ranging investigation into the adequacy of the earnings rule as we move into the last quarter of the twentieth century rather than on the basis that money prevents them from accepting what we propose.
I concede that it is a matter of opinion whether our sense of priorities should lead us along this road. In my view, our sense of priority is right, because, for a modest sum, we can extend to the higher-earning pensioner the incentive which we have given to the better-off worker.
I should not wish to go to the stake for the Bill—I am not even sure that I should wish to go to the Division Lobby for it—but I consider that in a modest way it would help a number of people to help themselves. It would represent one more notable landmark in the work of a Government who have, by innovation and compassion, already relieved some of the worst excesses of social injustice.
For all those reasons—the modesty of the Bill, the fact that we have our sense of priorities right, and that, in general, it is a move which will be welcomed by a small but significant number of people as a valuable incentive—I hope that the Government will accept the Bill, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley on having introduced it.

11.42 a.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I hope that the Government will be favourably disposed towards the Bill and that the House will give it a Second Reading today. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) has done himself great credit by his choice of subject for his Private Member's Bill. It touches the conscience of the House and indeed the whole country that we are not doing enough for our old people and that the condition in which many of our pensioners are living is a national disgrace. Any Measure, therefore, which is aimed at improving the lot and the spending power of old people will assuredly receive a warm welcome.
At this point, I must observe that the welcome this morning has come largely from the Conservative benches. The Labour Party does not seem to be willing to turn up on a Friday for the sake of the old people.

Mr. O'Malley: The hon. Gentleman will know that, when hon. Members promote and arrange to sponsor Bills, especially Bills unlikely to be the subject of party-political controversy, there is the courtesy that the promoter approaches hon. Members on the opposite benches to ask for their support. There has been no indication from the promoter or any of the sponsors of this Bill to that effect.

Mr. Coombs: Every member of the Opposition Front Bench, even including the Whips Office, though excluding the Chief Whip and the Deputy Chief Whip, has been approached on this matter——

Mr. O'Malley: Not on sponsoring.

Mr. Coombs: No, that is so, but they were given adequate notice, and many of them orally promised to lend their support, support which, I regret to see, is not forthcoming.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: The Labour Party is paid for by the trade unions, and right hon. and hon. Members opposite, quite naturally, incline particularly towards the interest of trade unionists. This is incompatible with the interests of pensioners. Pensioners are a minority group, and they are suffering, I suppose, more than anyone else today from the inordinate demands of trade unionists which are stoking up the inflation from which pensioners are increasingly suffering.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Yardley on his delivery, too, for he has shown himself to be a master of his subject. Not only is he the promoter; he has taken a great deal of trouble on the Bill. He has not been over-ambitious. He has not, for example, sought to introduce a Bill to abolish the earnings rule altogether; but he has made a specific and sensible suggestion for a step in the right direction.
In regard to the whole matter of the earnings rule, there are two differences which need to be analysed closely. One is the question of its disincentive effect. No one can deny that the operation of

the earnings rule has a serious disincentive effect. There has been a gradual drying-up of the availability of workers for casual and part-time jobs. This is a great pity. I do not believe that the drying-up of the availability of part-time workers has a significant effect on employment as a whole, because unemployed full-time workers are not really concerned to find themselves part-time work.
There are, nevertheless, vacancies for workers who could do an hour or two here and there during a week or a few hours a week, and these vacancies are not being filled. There is, therefore, a gap, and pensioners could so easily fill it, but the operation of the earnings rule gives them a sense of bitterness and a disincentive which makes them prefer to remain in idleness. That is not good for them if they have it in them to work and would like to do so.
The other question is the whole issue of entitlement. The time has come for the House to clarify its thinking here. Is a pension a reward for a lifetime of work, is it something to which a man or woman is entitled by virtue of citizenship, or is it simply, in effect, a benefit in relief of need?
Because of the difficulty of finding the money to bring our retired population up to the sort of standard of living which is the minimum which public opinion considers necessary, there has always been a compromise in our thinking. Although we may consider that we are giving people pensions derived from their citizenship or from their record of contributions, in fact, our clinging to the operation of the earnings rule shows that, in truth, the pension is simply a benefit in relief of need.
In their White Paper, A Strategy for Pensions—which I hope we shall soon hear very much more about—the Government have made a break-through and have produced certain specific recommendations as to the way in which entitlement to pension should be established. They have chosen two different routes, and both are right. One is that of relationship to the lifelong record of contributions by employer and employee. When we have strictly earnings-related pensions, nothing more will be heard about an earnings rule, I am sure, since the application of an earnings rule to a pension


which is strictly contribution-related would be quite unacceptable.
On citizenship, we are moving forward to the concept of positive tax credits. Those of us on both sides who are seriously interested in the reform of the Welfare State are eagerly awaiting the Government's Green Paper on the subject. What I feel sure is certain to emerge from that Green Paper, however it tackles the question of positive tax credits, is a proposal for cash credits to be paid in relation to citizenship. They will apply to the old as much as to people at work.
Thus, in future it is the Government's intention that there should be at least two pensions. The third retirement benefit, which is the benefit in relief of need, will I hope dwindle away so that in due course it will remain only for those special cases which have to be dealt with by compassionate case-work, and cannot fit into the general pattern of the population at large.
I hope therefore that in the end we are to abolish the earnings rule for all except a tiny minority. It is a shoddy compromise; it is disadvantageous to the economy, and it should end. The question is one of timing.
We must all realise that in bringing forward his Bill at this stage in the Session my hon. Friend can have little hope of its completing its stages. That is why I hope that the Measure will receive its Second Reading today, for the Government need not fear that they will find themselves embarrassed, financially or in any other way, by the Bill unexpectedly becoming law. This is a gesture, a specific recommendation. It is interesting and right, and I hope that the Bill will command the support of the House.

11.51 a.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: First, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) on introducing the Bill, and on the manner in which he presented it to the House. He has all the experts on his side when he deplores the fact that the transition from full employment to full retirement is often very abrupt and swift. All the experts in all countries are agreed that an abrupt change from full work to total idelness increases melachololia, often leads to physical and men-

tal decline, and is responsible for a sharp upturn in the suicide rate shortly after full retirement—particularly of men because, as has been said, women very rarely do fully retire: they still have the household jobs to do.
This is one field in which those at the top end of the social scale often suffer more than do those at the other end. I cannot claim to know many retired captains of industry but I do know some, and I know that the transition between filling a job in which one is responsible for the employment of several thousand men and the utilisation of several million pounds of capital and suddenly being faced at the end of one full working day with an endless vista of being nothing more than an odd job man for one's wife has a very profound psychological effect on a lot of people. But one knows that those at the too end of the working scale, those who have filled important and responsible jobs, usually have some substantial Derision at least to tide over the physical impact of retirement. Even if they cannot be happy, they can be unhappy in a comfortable way.
Of course, the psychological shock of going from full employment to total unemployment affects those at the lower end of the social scale as well. My old university friend, and expert on poverty and the social services, Peter Townsend, did a study on the family life of old people, and he noted this about the inhabitants of Bethnal Green, where there are not many retired captains of industry living. He said that after retirement, very few of the men in Bethnal Green could occupy their time satisfactorily:
Their life became a rather desperate search for pastimesor a gloomy contemplation of their own helplessness, which, at its worse, was little better than waiting to die. They found no substitute for the companionship, absorption and fulfilment of work.
Many of us will have found in our constituency work that this applies to a very great many people, who are unhappy with the prospect of retirement, of the fact of retirement. One would therefore have thought that Government policy would be directed to encouraging a blurring of the boundary between full employment and full retirement. One would have thought that every encouragement would be given to people to remain in part-time employment for several years after they retired from their full-time jobs.
One finds, in fact, that all the pressure is the other way, and this has led to a reduction in the proportion of the population which remains in any form of employment after the retirement age. In 1959, one man in seven deferred his retirement from 65 until the age of 70. By 1968 the proportion had dropped to one man in 15. This is a move wholly in the wrong direction. The drop in the proportion may have been due to more rigid enforcement of the retirement rules by employers, particularly following the introduction of selective employment tax, but there can be no doubt that the whole system militates against continued working.
There can equally be no doubt that the earnings rule plays a major part in this disincentive system. Some of my hon. Friends have said that they would like to see the total abolition of the earnings rule, the cost of which according to the last estimate I had, would be £110 million a year. I am not sure that top priority can at this moment be given to this expenditure, but I hope that we shall move along that path today.
But the earnings rule is not the only disincentive. Those who remain in employment, or in part-time employment, are also faced with income tax demands, and also have to pay their insurance stamp. I am indebted to Mr. David Piachaud, lecturer in social administration at the London School of Economics, for details of some work he has done in this field. His figures relate to the period from September, 1971 for a man aged between 65 and 70.
If that man ceases to work altogether, if he is single and has an occupational pension from his employment of about £1 per week, and if his housing costs are £3 per week and his savings are small, the net income he will receive from the State amounts to £10·30 a week. But let us suppose that he decides to take anew, part-time job and that he is lucky enough to earn, say, £20 a week. All he would be able to keep from that £20 is £15·67. So the difference between going to work, and earning £20, and being totally unemployed and receiving £10·30 from the State is £5·37 a week.
In other words, the difference between working and not working means that

rather more than 70 per cent. of his earnings disappear. This is an equivalent tax rate to that of somebody with an income of £20,000, at the higher levels, if one merely takes the normal income tax rates into account. There is a really disproportionate burden at present on old people who wish to continue in employment.
The Bill would take a very modest step of removing some of this burden. It will cost only about £350,000 a year. The total amount of the earnings rule is well over £100 million, so one could say that the Bill takes us only one-third of 1 per cent. along the road. But I am encouraged by the fact that the Government have introduced a far-reaching review of the inter-relation of the social security and tax systems, and by the fact that we shall soon have a Green Paper. I believe that it is through the introduction of the positive tax credit system that one can get the solution to this problem. I hope that when the Green Paper has been published it will be found that major attention has been paid to the problem of the old people being subject to this rule.
I look forward with active anticipation to the Government's thoughts on the matter. Meanwhile in advance of the Green Paper and the introduction of the positive tax credit system, I hope that today we can take this limited but still valuable step along to the road towards abolition of the imposition of unfair burdens on those retired people who wish to take part-time employment.

12.5 p.m.

Dr. Alan Glyn: I would be the last person to want to introduce a party point, as did one of my hon. Friends earlier. I believe that the Bill is very popular and very modest. On that point I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs). It is true to say that the Government have done a great deal to help the elderly and those on fixed incomes and pensions. Nevertheless, it would be a fair assessment to say that people in general are bewildered and can never quite understand why the earnings rule should in any way be implemented, and why they should be penalised for working when they have retired.
I know perfectly well what my hon. Friend on the Front Bench will answer


to that. He will say categorically that the retirement pension is for the person who has retired from work. I imagine that that is what he will say.
But one has to realise that society has changed and that many people in Britain feel that although they have reached a certain age they would still like to carry on with a certain element of gainful employment. The great advantage of that is that it is not only a help to them but also a help to society. It enables them to do a useful job which perhaps they have been doing throughout their life. As one of my hon. Friends said, it gives them immense happiness and tremendous satisfaction to be able to do this.
There comes a time when a person says "It is no longer worth my while doing this because I shall be so penalised as regards my retirement pension that I am virtually working for nothing." People feel that some modest reward for what they are doing should be given. Many of these people, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. David James) said, are skilled in special trades, many of which are dying out, and they are specially needed in our society for those trades which are very necessary.
From a medical and therapeutic point of view—probably my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford), will mention this—there is a great advantage if people have some interest in life apart from just drawing a retirement pension, playing golf or bowls, or having a hobby; something which keeps their minds going and gives them interest and a general feeling of satisfaction.
I do not believe that this would interfere in any great measure with the general unemployment level. We all regret the tragic unemployment level. But this is a marginal thing because many of these people concerned in the Bill do not work every day of the week but only part-time. I cannot accept that this would to any great extent alter the general level of employment.
What are we doing? What we have to think about very closely is, first, the cost. We know the cost. It is very modest. I believe that it is part and parcel of a new philosophy of life that a retirement pension should be treated in the same way as any other pension, as earned income.
No doubt the Under-Secretary will say, quite rightly, that private pensions will have been paid for. We know this, but it is no good telling the country this. People are sick and tired and bored stiff with it all. They say that they have their pension and ask why it cannot be treated as part and parcel of their income. It is no good carrying on with all the old arguments we have been going through. I do not want to be too hard on my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, because he and the Government have done an enormous amount, and I do not denigrate what they have done. I am merely putting forward views which every one of my hon. Friends receives every day from pensioners.
There is nothing new about it. It is a fact of life. I urge my hon. Friend to take a look at this and to say "This is part of your earned income. If you earn a bit more, you pay tax." That is fair enough. I do not believe that people should have this tax-free. Anything they earn over and above the pension would be treated as income and I cannot see any objection to looking at this in an entirely different way.
This conception of the earnings rule was born of Beveridge and it is now dying of Beveridge because it is out of date. The whole philosophy, our whole method of living, has completely altered. Although this is a modest Measure I would remind the Under-Secretary that, even if it did obtain the approval of Parliament, which is by no means impossible, he would still be faced with something like under a quarter of a million people not covered by the scope of the Measure. I hope that when Government thinking is finalised on this, we will have a new look at the whole subject.
The existing situation is quite unrealistic. Let us move to an entirely new conception and say to people "This is part of your income. If you take any more employment you must accept that as being part of your earned income as it is with any insurance policy." Led us move forward into a new era. If people wish to use their leisure hours for part-time work they should be permitted to do so. In the light of the Tory philosophy of helping people in need I could not bring myself to oppose this Bill.

12.10 p.m.

Mr. Brian O'Malley: I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) not only on introducing the Bill but on his contribution to the debate. It was a substantial contribution, requiring a detailed and considered reply from the Under-Secretary. Nevertheless the very fact that the hon. Gentleman has felt it necessary to introduce this Bill is in itself an implicit criticism of the Budget proposals. I know that the Under-Secretary will say that the Chancellor's proposals included an increase in retirement pensions in the autumn and reflected acceptance of the annual review. I have heard the hon. Gentleman make the same speech so often that I have felt inclined to say that if he goes on much more I must ask him to negotiate a "needle time" agreement. It must also be said that the extent of assistance to retirement pensioners has to be judged in the very special circumstances of 1971–72.
During these years we have seen unprecedented price increases, a massive balance of payments surplus left by the previous Administration, industrial stagnation and 1 million people unemployed. In those circumstances, the Chancellor had a lot of room for manœuvre when considering with the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he could help the pensioners. The Chancellor has announced that he will help them but we have said that the help could be much greater in the special circumstances of 1972.
It was interesting to note that the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams), who always takes part in these debates, said this morning that the position of many retirement pensioners was a national disgrace. This is at a time when the Chancellor has literally thousands of millions of pounds of which to dispose. He chose to use that money in giving priority to the wealthier rather than to retirement pensioners.
The hon. Gentleman used that phrase and then went on to imply that the reason was that members of trade unions were asking for what he described as excessive wage increases. That comes hard from an hon. Member who has said over the years in this House that he has a concern for poverty. In the present

dispute between the railway unions, the Railways Board and the Government, we can see that the Government are blocking any attempt to reach a £20 minimum wage. Yet the hon. Gentleman says that pensioners are suffering because men are trying to get a decent income for their family—in the mines a few weeks ago and now on the railways. It is a travesty of the facts.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: I seem to have touched the hon. Gentleman on a tender spot. I am not at all afraid of his attacks because my position with regard to the reform of the Welfare State is well enough understood on both sides. Dealing with the Budget, would it not be true to say that the Chancellor did what was urgently required in the interests of the country as a whole and that the pensioners' increases are tied up with that just as much as with the needs of children, trade unionists and everyone else? What we need is to restore the good health of the economy. When we have done that, there will be money for the pensioners and all the other minority groups.

Mr. O'Malley: What is true about the Budget is that the Chancellor could have helped retirement pensioners a great deal more than he did. Instead, he chose to give priority to the better-off in the community.

Mr. Coombs: It is regrettable that the hon. Gentleman should be using this Bill as a platform for cheap political points. The criticism in this Bill is directed at successive Governments, particularly the Attlee Administration. Let us be clear about this. The main responsibility for these retirement pensioners not having a fair deal lies with the T.U.C. because it was its influence and persuasiveness that made the Attlee Administration reject the Beveridge recommendations on the proportional band throughout.

Mr. O'Malley: If the hon. Gentleman will constrain himself for a moment I will make some comments on his Bill. At the beginning of my speech I congratulated the hon. Gentleman on introducing the Bill and I support him in what he is doing. I am, however, bound from these benches to look at the background against which the hon. Gentleman is moving his Bill. What remains true, in spite of what


the hon. Gentleman said, is that the Government have not done enough for pensioners in the circumstances of this year. I hope that the Government will be able to accept the Bill, because anything that will help pensioners, even marginally, should be welcomed by the House.
May I refer to a point raised by the hon. Member for Billericay (Mr. McCrindle) during our exchange on means testing, when I pointed out that one effect of the policy of selectivity adopted by the Government is that year by year larger numbers of the population are being required to submit to means testing. He asked what the Labour Party intended to do about it and what the previous Labour Government had done about it. He understands these things because I believe that he is a pensions consultant. The Grossman proposals would have taken year by year an increasing number of retirement pensioners from means-tested benefits, whereas the results of the Government's proposals will be that by the 21st century there will be two million or three million retirement pensioners still dependent on means-tested supplementary benefits, such as we know today.
But it is odd that the hon. Gentleman should say, "I support the Bill"—and I generally support any Bill on these lines in a year like this—but is not prepared to vote for it. The pensioners in his constituency will think it very strange that he should say, "The Government should do this, and I support the Bill", but if the Minister says that the Government cannot do what is proposed at the moment he is not prepared to defy the whips. I understand these things——

Mr. McCrindle: I am not prepared to be drawn into the hon. Gentleman's fairly obvious trap. If he reads in HANSARD what I said, he will see that I was less definite than he says I was. However, that is not the main point of my intervention. I said earlier that means tests were not an ideal solution. On the other hand, what worries me is that there are so many means tests that their proliferation worries me almost as much as their existence. Short of abolishing the means test, I presume that the hon. Gentleman agrees that movement towards one means test is right. Does he accept that the indication in the Chancellor's Budget speech of the possibility

of a positive tax credit system is a considerable move in that direction? Is it not a little unfair to say that the Government have taken no action and do not envisage taking action on this matter and that the only thing we should rely on is the half-baked Crossman pension proposals?

Mr. O'Malley: My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said that we would be prepared to consider very carefully the outline proposals which the Chancellor made in his Budget speech. We shall look at them with an open mind. Of course, I would want to see a reduction made in means testing, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman's view is similar to mine. He must therefore, I assume, find himself in opposition to his Front Bench on this subject.
The hon. Member for Yardley explained that the Bill was modest; it did not seek to abolish the earnings rule. It is right, however, that periodically there should be discussion of all aspects of the National Insurance system, including the operation of the earnings rule. Hon. Members are quite right in saying that many retirement pensioners resent bitterly, and do not understand the reason for, the earnings rule. The Bill does not deal with it, but it is right that hon. Members should express their views about the operation of the rule.
It is true that the earnings rule has been operated by successive Governments on account of the cost to the Exchequer, although it has been modified over the years by successive Governments. My hon. Friend the Member for Walls-send (Mr. Garrett) gave voice to fears in areas like his and my constituency where there is a very high rate of unemployment. But, in the long term, that will not be so important a factor in considering the earnings rule because with the return of the Labour Party to power there will not be the level of unemployment which has resulted from the present Government's policies.
There is no need for me to go into the details of the Bill because the hon. Member for Yardley has explained his proposals far more than adequately. It should be possible further to assist the pensioners this year. The Bill is modest. It affects only a small number of retirement pensioners and its implementation


would not be vastly expensive. A Minister is one of the sponsors of the Bill, and I hope that we can take it, therefore, that the Government have decided that they can support their back bench Members this morning in backing the Bill.

12.25 p.m.

Mr. Fergus Montgomery: The hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) tried to make a great political issue out of this subject. As we who sat on the benches opposite before the last General Election know, the hon. Gentleman spent some time in dealing with pensions when he was a Minister, and during that time I did not see pensioners in my constituency going round with happy faces. They had problems then, and they always have had problems. My hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Dr. Glyn) was quite sure in saying that this situation confronts every Government.
Some pensioners are quite well off. One of the reasons why Harold Macmillan, when he reached the age of 70 and received the pension as of right, created a great deal of publicity about it was to show that every time there was a flat-rate increase in the pension, people like him, who did not need it, received it and Mrs. Jones, who desperately needed the money, received exactly the same amount. One of the problems is that pensioners have different needs, and we must try to concentrate our efforts on those who are in greatest need.
I am delighted to support the Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) should be congratulated on his initiative in introducing it. It will help, in a modest way—and the word "modest" has been used a great deal in describing the Bill—pensioners who are affected by the earnings rule. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor that people do not seem to understand the earnings rule. It is tremendously unpopular, and no matter how hard we try to explain its workings, people remain unconvinced about it. It affects men between the ages of 65 and 70 and women between the ages of 60 and 65. The pension is called a retirement pension. A man, on reaching the age of 65, can retire and receive his

pension. But some people are still very active at that age and they want to go on working because it gives them an interest.
The limit on the earnings rule has been periodically increased since 1946. It is now possible for a person to earn £9·50 a week before his pension is touched. But, after he earns £9·50, 5p of his pension disappears for every 10p he earns. As the law stands, when a pensioner earns more than £11·50, 10p is deducted from his pension for every 10p he earns. Thus, a pensioner who earns £11·50 in addition to his pension has £1 deducted from his pension. He gets in total earnings £10·50 a week, plus pension. But the pensioner who earns £16·50 would have £6 deducted and, therefore, he would be in exactly the same financial position as the pensioner who works shorter hours and who earns only £11·50.
There is, therefore, a complete lack of incentive for people to earn more, and this spotlights one of the problems which we must face. The people who try to help themselves seem to be penalised all along the line, and the people who are prepared to batten on the Welfare State seem to get help all the way along the line. Irrespective of which party is in power, the Government must devise methods of helping thrify people and those who are anxious to help themselves.
Earlier this week I met a deputation of widows from Staffordshire, and the theme throughout the discussion was that they did not want to go on supplementary benefit; they wanted to help themselves. They wanted to keep their pride and their state of independence. Their great moan throughout was that by helping themselves they were penalised all along the line.
The Bill proposes that for the next £4 a pensioner earns over £9·50, a proportion of his pension will be deducted meaning that the pensioner could earn £13·50 before 10p of his pension was deducted for every 10p earned. I talked earlier about a pensioner who earned £16·50 and as a result had £6 deducted. Under the Bill the deduction would be £5 and the pensioner would gain about £1.
The total cost of implementing this Measure is very modest. I think it is about £350,000 a year. I hope that the


Minister will accept the Bill. It is estimated that there are some 1¼ million pensioners who are subject to the earnings rule. This Bill would give assistance to many of those people. Again I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley upon highlighting this problem, and I am delighted to give my support to the Bill.

12.31 p.m.

Dr. Tom Stuttaford: I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) upon bringing forward this Measure, and thank him for asking me to be a sponsor of the Bill.
It has been very interesting to have heard the Bill continually referred to as being modest but this is a euphamistic view for, although limited, in terms of cash—that is to say, what it would cost the Government; to that extent it might be considered insignificant—in other ways it is very significant, not least because it shows the country that we are at last beginning to recognise the absurdity and unfairness of the earnings rule. By this Bill we are showing to the country—to the Government, perhaps—that we disapprove of the earnings rule.
The Bill would bring up to date the proportion of the band of pensioners affected most by the earnings rule. It would do so by taking into account the massive inflation there has been since this rule was last considered. It is not doing any more; it is doing only this. It seems a very modest Measure for the Government to accept, as I hope they will, to show that their heart is in the right place and that they will do their very best to support the feeling, which obviously exists on the Conservative back benches, that sooner or later the earnings rule should be ended altogether.
The earnings rule is absurd medically. I should like to follow the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Dr. Glyn) who today, although he may be wearing his military tie, is wearing his medical hat. There is no doubt whatever that people age at different rates. We cannot take that into account by providing different pensions for different people ageing at different times, but we can take account of the fact that there are some people who could go on working beyond the age of 65. The Bill

would acknowledge that some people wear out earlier than others; it would allow those who wish to retire completely at 65 to do so, therefore allowing for difference in the ageing rate of different people.
This discrepancy in the rate of ageing we can see illustrated here in the corridors of the Palace of Westminster. We do not need only to look across the Floor of the House from either side to see how people age differently. There are manual workers in this place: one may see, for instance, plumbers or workmen doing building work. Manual workers tend to age faster than men who do sedentary jobs. A manual worker by the very conditions of his work and of his life wears himself out the sooner.
The earnings rule penalises the poorer section of the Community and it penalises the manual worker. A man who has an occupational pension may retire at 50 under his occupational pension scheme. The earnings rule does not penalise the richer man, or the man on the occupational pension scheme. He gets his pension by virtue of the work which he has done. The State scheme with its earnings rule deprives those who work beyond the age of 65.
Both my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor and my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) dealt in considerable detail with the trauma of men who give up work completely. I should like to underline their point. Manual workers often find at the end of the working day that they have no energy to spend on outside hobbies or outside interests and to develop them. When they retire they can to a small extent, to a limited degree, continue to do their work, but the earnings rule deprives them if they do so. It is discouraging to them, and it deprives all of us of a still useful source of labour. Also, by discouraging those men from doing the work they still can do hurries them both physically and intellectually to an end, a state of affairs with which we on this side of the House certainly do not agree.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-secretary of State will take into account the very real feelings which exist among those on the back benches who take an interest in the social services, and that he will accept this Bill, which will not involve large financial cost but will show


everybody the way in which we are thinking about these matters for the future.

12.36 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bray: Like others who have spoken this morning I want to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) on bringing this Bill forward and I do so for a number of reasons. First, it is necessary in the interests of those caught within the existing limits. Secondly, the Bill would enable people to obtain satisfaction from some form of work after they retire. Thirdly, it does not state specifically the age for retirement but provides a degree of flexibility. Fourthly, it is flexible in the amounts which one might earn before being caught—for tax, shall I say?—caught for pension deduction.
Analysing the complaints from my constituents who bring them to me I am impressed by the amazing number of criticisms which I have received over the last two years about this earnings rule, and by the fact that they ask, "Why should we work to earn more than £5 or £6 a week when that only affects our pension?" The Bill would definitely alleviate that position. That is all to the good. I might add that thus the Bill would save me a certain amount of work; it would certainly save me a lot of heart searching, since the Bill would meet those complaints or even eliminate them.
I have, however, one slight reservation about the Bill, and that is about the degree of tapering off at the second and third stages. The Bill starts at £9·50; we go on to £13·50 and to 50 per cent, loading. After that there is 100 per cent. write off. I think further thought should be given to that, should the sponsor of the Bill be inclined so to do.
Beyond that I welcome the Bill completely. I would not go along with the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) in making a party political speech on this matter. To my mind it is completely unfair and out of order ostensibly to speak on this Bill and then to turn a speech into a purely party political——

Dr. Stuttaford: Broadcast.

Mr. Bray: —broadcast, as my hon. Friend puts it so succinctly and pertinently.
All that I would say, briefly, is that this Bill is brought in as a result of the erosion in purchasing power, an erosion which the Government inherited from the previous Administration, an erosion which the Government are doing their best to curb, with little or no assistance—indeed, with a degree of strong obstruction—from the other side of the House. I would add that since I have been here this morning the number of Members present on the Government side has averaged, by between five and six times, more than the number of Members present on the other side of the House who seek to criticise the Government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and everything which comes from this side of the House, and who do that purely and simply to play to the gallery.
I support the Bill, with that one reservation I have made, and wish it every success in its passage through the House.

12.40 p.m.

Mr. James Kilfedder: The Bill applies to Northern Ireland and that is why I am interested in it. I have taken an interest in national insurance for a considerable time. Although publicity concentrates on the trouble and terrorism in Northern Ireland, there are many other problems which affect the people living there just as much as they affect people living in the rest of the United Kingdom. I am thinking particularly of old people.
I was surprised to hear the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) castigating the Government for the way in which they are dealing with old-age pensioners. I made my maiden speech in 1964 on the National Insurance Bill of the day and I remember the appeals on that occasion, from both sides of the House in which I joined, to the then Labour Government to help the old-age pensioners. It is wrong that the hon. Gentleman should criticise the Government who have already done so much in the short time they have been in power.
I support the Bill. There are a great many people in my constituency who will be glad to see it go through the House. I am sorry that we cannot at this stage see the complete abolition of the earnings


rule, but I hope that we shall do so before long. This modest Measure may be a pointer to what will eventually come. I was surprised to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) say that the Bill may not go through. I hope that it will go through today, and I join in the congratulations which have already been offered to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) on having introduced the Bill.
No hon. Member has had the experience of transition from employment to retirement in old age, but we know from what we have heard that it has a terrible psychological effect. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) said that manual workers wear themselves out faster than do sedentary workers. I am not a medical expert, merely an ex-lawyer, and I am perhaps the wrong person to cross swords with him, but I should have thought that manual workers are not more adversely affected than are other people. Hon Members, for example, have not only the physical exertion of running round the Palace of Westminster but also have to make great mental efforts.
Many people look forward with great pleasure to retirement, but when it comes they realise that they are in fact facing empty years ahead. The only way to help such old people is by allowing them to take up some form of employment after they retire. Once they retire, many people, unfortunately, have nothing to look forward to than the day when they die. We should enable them, as this modest Measure does, to take up some form of work to keep their interest alive and to keep them to move along to the stage when they are able to enjoy their retirement. I give the Bill my blessing and I know that it will have the support of all people in Northern Ireland.

12.45 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) on introducing the Bill and giving the House the opportunity to consider an important aspect of our social services which does not perhaps get full consideration when we are discussing Bills to improve various benefits because it is a comparatively narrow aspect of

our social service arrangements. I am glad that we have this opportunity to look more fully at the earnings rule and the details in the Bill. I am also pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) was able to participate in the debate. Although Northern Ireland has slightly different arrangements, they are similar to the arrangements in other parts of the United Kingdom.
I do not seek to debate the earnings rule in principle, except to say that nobody loves it. If we were starting again we would seek to avoid having it, but the fact is that we do have it and have had it since 1948. If it were abolished the cost would be about £110 million gross. Taking into account income tax and other factors, the net cost would be about £80 million. All this would go to those pensioners who, by definition, are the better-off pensioners, namely, those who are able to work and to augment their pensions. The bulk would go to those who are working full time and would continue to work full time were the rule to be abolished. That is the harsh reality.
I am sure my hon. Friends will agree that the most distinguishing mark of our social service policy since we came to office in June, 1970, has been the desire to identify the most urgent needs and, having identified them, to bring effective help to bear. My hon. Friends will also agree—many of them have said so today—that a great deal of progress has been made as a result of this rigid allocation of priorities and looking for the most urgent needs.
To enable us to be successful we have had to avoid new commitments on items which, however desirable they may be in themselves, do not command the highest priority. As a result of this policy a whole series of items which passed the priority test have been put into our programme and are now in operation.
The list is impressive. It includes pensions for the over-80s, which did not exist before; pensions for widows between the ages of 40 and 50 without dependent children, which did not exist before; the various new invalidity allowances within the national insurance scheme; the attendance allowance outside the national insurance scheme—none


of which existed before; the family income supplement to assist those families who, in spite of being in full-time work, are not able to provide an adequate income for themselves—again a new venture; and the annual review of pensions, coming into operation for the first time this year. All these represent increased expenditure on cash benefits of over £1,000 million in 1971 and in 1972 if one takes account of the review recently announced.
It is only as a result of a rigid allocation of priorities that it has been possible to make this substantial progress and these advances into new areas of need, which were not covered at all when we came into office two years ago. I ask my hon. Friends to bear in mind the background to the success that we have been able to achieve.

Dr. Stuttaford: Does my hon. Friend agree that the longer we can keep people physically active and mentally alert the greater will be the saving to the social services, and that the cost to the social services goes up if they start to fall into decrepitude at an earlier stage?

Mr. Dean: I agree with my hon. Friend and I shall be dealing more fully with the valuable points which he and others of my hon. Friends have made in that context.
Against the general background, perhaps I could say a word or two about the earnings rule itself. We are committed to continuing to improve the earnings rule, and on behalf of Her Majesty's Government I wish to take this opportunity of repeating that commitment. It is an absolutely firm commitment into which we entered at the election, and which we put into operation last year when we raised the amount which could be earned. Last September the amount which could be earned without any reduction in pension was increased by £2—from the previous figure of £7·50 to the existing figure of £9·50. This increase of £2 was the biggest increase which has ever been made in the amount which can be earned.
I want to emphasise that this is a continuing commitment. We did not regard last year's change in the earnings rule as a once-for-all operation which fulfilled

our commitments made in the Conservative manifesto. This is a continuing commitment, and I assure my hon. Friends and the House that the Government will be reviewing again the operation of the earnings rule carefully and sympathetically, and we shall certainly wish to give consideration to what has been said today.
I hope that any misunderstanding there may have been that having made a change last year, we thought we had done all that was required on the earnings rule, will now be removed. Indeed when I mention in a few moment the significance of the new tax-credit arrangements, my hon. Friends will see that there are big implications here for the subject we are discussing today.
I wish to say a word about the suggestion that there has not been a thorough review of the earnings rule since it began to operate in 1948. I assure the House that we carried out a thorough review when we came into office. I admit that I was one of those who dearly hoped that we would find a way to get rid of this unloved, psychologically bad regulation but, unhappily, it has not proved possible to do so particularly because of the cost implications. I want to assure the House that before we published our strategy for dealing with further pension arrangements, we carried out a thorough review of the retirement conditions and the earnings rule to see whether, in addition to easing the arrangements, it would be possible to make a more radical change. But we decided that at that moment there was no way in which it could be done without very substantial expenditure, which would have created difficulties in terms of the priorities which the whole House accepted as being the right priorities.

Dr. Glyn: We all understand and appreciate my hon. Friend's point of view, but if we treated this merely as part of income, what would be the total cost to the Exchequer in regarding the pension as part of the total income and taxing the remainder in accordance with the normal tax laws?

Mr. Dean: I am afraid that I cannot answer the tax point off the cuff. I can tell my hon. Friend that the gross cost of abolishing the rule outright would be about £110 million. The reason the cost


is so large is that a number of people who are now working full time between the ages of 65 and 70 would then retire, draw their pension and go back to full-time work. That is why the cost would be so heavy. I appreciate that some of that additional income would come back in taxation and that therefore the net cost of abolition would be less—but, unhappily, it would not be all that much less. The best estimate I can give the House is that the cost would be about £80 million. In other words, a substantial figure would still be involved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. Stewart-Smith) said that we should get rid of the rule entirely. On the other hand, my hon. Friend the Member for Billericay (Mr. McCrindle) did not agree with that. This is a retirement pension and therefore an earnings rule is necessary to support the retirement condition. That is the position taken up by successive Governments through the years on this matter.
This subject has been carefully considered over the years not only by Governments but also by the National Insurance Advisory Committee. That Committee has published two major reports on the earnings rule, one in May, 1956 and the other in January, 1967. The Report in January, 1967 went fully into the implications of the retirement condition and the earnings rule. I remind the House of the main conclusions they reached on this matter in principle. Paragraph 13 of the Committee's Report said:
The abolition of the earnings rule is not within our terms of reference. But this apart we wish to record our view that the earnings rule is an essential complement to the retirement condition. The retirement condition, in turn, is a fundamental aspect of the provisions made by the national insurance scheme for pensions and does not fall within the terms of reference on the question which we are asked to examine. It would, we consider, only be feasible to dispense with an earnings rule if a method could be found of adequately maintaining the retirement condition without it. In our 1956 Report we discussed this possibility and concluded that once it has been established that a person has retired, an earnings rule of some kind is the only practical measure of work which is consistent with retirement. Nothing has been put before us, in the course of our present inquiry, to suggest that this conclusion is no longer valid, and we would wish to re-endorse it here. The crux of the matter seems to us to be that the present provision for pensions for elderly people are based on the premise that for men

between 65 and 70 and women between 60 and 65, a pension is only available when they have completely given up work or have done so to a substantial extent. The principle here is the one which underlies all the main benefits of the national insurance scheme, that they are payable where earnings have been interrupted or have ceased. As long, therefore, as a pension is not payable to those who continue full-time in regular work after the minimum pension age, there must clearly be some provision whereby a return to work once pension has been awarded leads, if it is on any substantial scale, to an adjustment of the pension. Such a provision can, in our view, only be in the form of an earnings rule which is complementary to, and supports the retirement condition.
That was the considered judgment of the specialist committee set up to advise the Secretary of State on these matters. I accept entirely that if we were starting from scratch I am sure that we should have done it differently. But we have it, and all Governments having considered the matter, and the specialist committee having considered it, we have not found a way in which these regulations can be altered substantially, as opposed to modified, to deal with the understandable and justified criticisms which are made.

Dr. Glyn: The retirement pension which a person gets from Imperial Chemical Industries or any other private firm is dealt with as part of his income. My hon. Friend's case is based on Beveridge, to whom we are all indebted. But, unhappily, he has passed away, and so have many of the principles on which his philosophy was based. Whatever the recommendations may be, I do not think that it is beyond the wit of my hon. Friend to look at this afresh and to see in the context of modern life whether this is not an equitable and satisfactory way of doing it, especially as it would cost only £80 million.

Mr. Dean: Perhaps I might be allowed to develop my argument, because I am coming to my hon. Friend's point. We have had a lengthy debate, and I wanted to go fairly fully into the background, what has happened, and why we are where we are. In due course, I shall deal with some of the very interesting implications of the tax-credit arrangements, and then I think that I shall be answering my hon. Friend's points.
Having given that background to the rule as it exists at the moment, perhaps I might remind the House of the regulations which exist and the number who


are affected by the rule as it applies at present. When the scheme began in 1948 the earnings limit was set at £1 a week. For every complete shilling earned above that the pension was reduced by one shilling. In 1956, the earnings band attracting deduction from pension at half rate was introduced, and the band was increased from £1 to £2 in 1967. It is with this band that the Bill is dealing. The earnings limit has been increased nine times since 1948. It has gone up from £1 in 1948 when the scheme began to £9·50, where it stands today.
There are about 7½ million retirement pensioners, 1¾ million of whom are in the age band subject to the earnings rule. Of those, only about 16,000 at any one time have their pensions reduced on account of earnings. But if the earnings rule and consequently the retirement condition were to be abolished, 175,000 men, 75.000 women on their own insurance and 125,000 dependent wives would qualify for retirement pension at a cost of about £110 million a year. As I said earlier, the vast majority would be people who are still continuing in full-time work despite the fact that they are over the minimum reitirement age.
I turn now to some of the main arguments which have been used in the debate. One of the main points running through the debate, and raised particularly by my hon. Friends the Members for Billericay and Brierley Hill (Mr. Montgomery), was that pensioners subject to the earnings rule had not had a fair deal in comparison with those in poverty, who had been helped through various measures that we had taken and, at the other end of the scale, the assistance that others had been given through reductions in taxation. They felt that here was an in-between group who had not had the attention that they required.
I wonder whether one can sustain those arguments on the position. Perhaps I might give my hon. Friends some figures on which they might like to reflect. First, a comparison of the earnings limit with actual earnings is an interesting comparison to make. In 1948, when the earnings limit was first introduced, the limit as a percentage of average earnings was 14·7. It has fluctuated over the years, but the tendency has been for the percentage to rise. In June, 1967, it

reached a peak of 31·2 per cent. It is now 31 per cent. That is the figure as from September, 1971. Taking into account the comparison of the earnings limit with actual earnings one can see that there has been very substantial progress since the earnings rule began to operate in 1948. The figure has risen from 14·7 per cent. in 1948 to 31 per cent. in September, 1971. I suggest that that is an interesting and relevant comparison to make.
The other comparison is for the improvements in the pension for the pensioner above the earnings limit. This, too, shows fairly clearly that a good deal of progress has been made. It is not correct, as one or two of my hon. Friends seemed to think, that those who were affected by the earnings limit have not been helped either by the pension increases that we have introduced or by tax reliefs. In the vast majority of cases, they have been helped.
Perhaps I might give one or two examples which I hope my hon. Friends will feel illustrate the point effectively. The combined effect of the pension increase and the change in the earnings rule last September increased the total income before tax of those earnings between £11·50 and £16·50 by amounts of up to £3. The largest increases were for those with the lowest earnings. After tax, their incomes were some £2 higher. The effect of the Budget tax changes gives a further increase of £1 in the income after tax of all pensioners whose earnings fall in this band, and the £75 increase in pensions next October will increase the total before tax income of all pensioners with earnings up to £16·50 by 75p. In other words the vast majority of pensioners subject to the earnings rule have benefited and will continue to benefit from the improvements that we are making in the pension and from the tax relief which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has introduced.
Further, no pensioner under the existing arrangements is absolutely enmeshed in the earnings rule. My hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, North (Mr. David James) mentioned the jobbing gardener. I do not know how much my hon. Friend pays him, but he can pay him £9·50 without his gardener having any reduction in his pension. The same is true of the


part-time worker mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams), since very often it is possible to arrange part-time work in such a way that the earnings rule does not bite at all or that it has the best effect under the existing arrangements for the person concerned. Provision was made some years ago whereby, because a pensioner was earning a substantial amount in retirement, the best course was for him to "de-retire". Anyone in that happy position is now free to cancel his retirement, in which case the earnings rule does not operate. He goes on paying contributions and earns an additional pension for himself when he retires finally. There are plenty of ways under the existing arrangements. There is flexibility which makes it possible for many people who continue to work in retirement to condition their type of work, the length of time that they work and the amount that they earn so that they can make the maximum benefit both from the pension and from their earnings.
My hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), Windsor (Dr. Glynn) and Norwich, South (Dr. Stuttaford) rightly drew attention to the need to avoid the harsh line between full-time work and part-time retirement. They said how bad it is both psychologically and from the point of view of loss of status that a man should be working flat out one day and be completely retired the next day. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham talked about the contrast between a man who successfully runs a business one day and the next day finds himself as the odd-job man for his wife. This is an undesirable situation. In many cases the last thing the wife wants is to have the old man hanging around the place getting in her way. There is the woman's point of view as well.
We want to do all that we can in the arrangements we make, through our social services and employment, to encourage gradual retirement and to avoid the risks and dangers which are otherwise involved for the people concerned.
Equally, we have to take into account the point made by the hon. Member for Wallsend (Mr. Garrett) that, where there is unemployment, there could be a clash of interests between the pensioner who, understandably, wishes to go on working

and the younger man who, understandably, wishes to start or to continue his career. That aspect has also to be taken into account.
Having conceded, as I freely do, the power of these arguments, I do not think that it necessarily follows that the earnings rule, as it operates at the moment, is as powerful a disincentive to gradual retirement as some of my hon. Friends have suggested. I put it to them that the figures which I have quoted and the flexible arrangements which I have mentioned within the existing system do not provide the bar to gradual retirement which was in some instances mentioned.
The next point—this is one of the most important points I wish to put to the House—concerns the tax-credit arrangements. This matter was mentioned by my hon. Friends the Members for Kensington, South and Beckenham in particular. It was also mentioned by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley), who has apologised to me for having to leave the Chamber for another engagement.
The hon. Member for Rotherham—I hope that he will not mind my saying this in his absence; I am glad to see the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle)—made the criticism, which he has made before, that one aspect of our social services arrangements which disturbs him is that we are introducing a new set of means tests. My hon. Friend the Member for Billericay interrupted the hon. Gentleman and reminded him that that was not the case, but that we have been continuing the arrangements which were operated by the previous Administration. The only new means test that we can be said to have introduced is for a new benefit, namely, the family income supplement. However, we have done a great deal to refine the means tests which exist, and the passport concept attached to the family income supplement is one good example.
More important in this general context is the tax-credit system which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor foreshadowed in his Budget speech. This, of course, is still in its early days. There is to be a Green Paper and discussion by a Select Committee. The all-important details which are still to be worked out will be done in the light of all the views and knowledge which can be gained on this matter. One thing which is


absolutely clear already from this far-reaching scheme is that it will substantially reduce the number of people now dependent upon means tests, as we understand them.
It ill behoves the hon. Member for Rotherham to criticise us for maintaining a long-established system when we have announced the most radical advance in this sphere by any Government for many years past.
There is a direct significance in the tax-credit system for the future operation of the earnings rule. This is the point which my hon. Friends have been urging. They said: "Never mind about what has happened during the last 20 years. What about the future?" There is no doubt whatever that the future of the earnings rule will have to be considered carefully because it has direct implications within the tax-credit system. In other words, I am giving my hon. Friends an assurance that we are not satisfied just to go on with the earnings rule; we shall continue to modify it at appropriate times.
We are also embarking, directly as a result of the tax-credit system, on a complete review of and radical look at the whole of this rule. I hope that my hon. Friends will feel that that is good news, as is the fact that I am able, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to respond to some of the points which have been strongly and understandably put today.
Against that background I will now take a closer look at the Bill which has been introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley. As he told us, it increases from £2 to £4 the band of earnings at which the pension is reduced by 5p for every 10p earned. This is a modest proposal. I do not claim otherwise. It will benefit only some of the pensioners whose pensions are subject to adjustments because of their earnings. It will not affect those pensioners whose earnings range from £9·50 to £11·50 a week. For those whose earnings fall between £11·50 and £13·50, the effect of the proposed change will be to reduce the pension adjustment by varying amounts up to £1 a week. When earnings are over £13·50, the adjustment will be£1 less to the point where, under the present rule, the pension is extin-

guished. This will apply to the pensioner earning £16·50 a week who receives the standard pension of £6. For such pensioners the effect of the proposed change will mean that the pension will not be extinguished until earnings reach £17·50.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale (Mr. Bray) doubted whether, if this sort of money were available, this was the best way to use it. I remind my hon. Friend that the effect of his proposal will be to help pensioners with higher incomes rather than those with lower earnings. It is arguable whether the detail is the right allocation of priorities, though I fully understand the reasons why my hon. Friend has made this specific proposal.
The cost of the proposed changes will be about £200,000 a year. That is on the assumption that a group of people who are not covered by the Bill will continue to be excluded. I refer to the wives of disability and retirement pensioners. The House will recollect that one of the changes in the earnings rule last September, which was welcomed in all parts of the House, was the substantial improvement which we made in the earnings rule provisions for the wives of the invalidity and retirement pensioners. Prior to September, 1971, they were able to earn only a very small amount, and if they earned more than that their husbands lost completely the dependency allowance in the national insurance scheme.
That was a harsh rule, which operated much more harshly on these people than the earnings rule. The change that we made last year was to put these people in the same position as the retirement pensioner subject to the earnings rule. We gave a fairly clear indication then that, having got these groups of people together, it would be desirable if, in any further changes in the earnings rule, they were kept together.
Unfortunately, my hon. Friend has excluded these highly deserving groups of people from his Bill, and therefore the effect would be that the retirement pensioner would benefit but the earning wife of an invalidity or retirement pensioner would not. If these groups of people were included in the Bill the cost would rise, and the best estimate that I can


give the House is that the cost would be between £500,000 and £1 million a year.
That, then, is the position on the Bill.
May I summarise the arguments and the attitude of the Government to the Bill. I mentioned—and my hon. Friend suspected that I would—the harsh reality of priorities. I submit that we have to take this into account, particularly when we have been able to do so much for so many needy groups of people, and when my right hon. Friend has announced another substantial improvement in benefits to come into operation in October of this year. Not only is the annual review starting this year, but the increase of 75p for a single person and £1.20 for a married couple will represent a real improvement in the buying power of the pension, while the extension of the attendance allowance, which has been urged upon us, means substantial additional resources being made available for the chronically sick and the disabled. There are other measures, too, which, as part of this year's package, add up to about £500 million a year. It is easy to ask what is an extra £500,000 or so on top of that sort of money, but the fact is that these small items add up, and if one goes on piling them on then, inevitably, we shall not be as successful in identifying and bringing effective help to the high priorities, as I am sure my hon. Friends will agree we have done in the past.
It is that, plus the Bill itself, which prompts me to put these points to the House: would it be wise to bind the Government in this way? Might it not be that the objective which my hon. Friends have put forward so eloquently today would be more effectively achieved by giving the Government a free hand to consider this aspect carefully for next year? It may well be that in next year's review—and, after all, we are now on annual reviews—we can do more than the Bill provides. I hope that we can, and I am sure that when we do next move on this we shall want to include the wives of invalidity and retirement pensioners, who are not included in the Bill.
Then there is the aspect of the tax-credit system which I mentioned and on which I have given a firm commitment that this scheme means that there will be

a full and radical examination of the operation of the earnings rule as a whole. I have also given a firm commitment that, in the light of this debate, the earnings rule will be looked at carefully and sympathetically for next year's review.
I ask my hon. Friend who has introduced the Bill and today's interesting debate, would it not be better, in view of the commitments that I have given and in view of the deficiencies in the Bill, for him to withdraw the Bill now, in the knowledge that the debate has extracted some important commitments which I have made on behalf of the Government? That is the course which I commend to my hon. Friend.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second Time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Coombs.]

Bill immediately considered in Committee.

[Miss HARVIE ANDERSON in the Chair]

Clause 1

AMENDMENT OF S. 30 OF 1965, c.51

The First Deputy Chairman: Does the hon. Member for Windsor (Dr. Glyn) wish to move any of his Amendments?

Dr. Glyn: No, Miss Harvie Anderson. I understand that they would be out of order.

The First Deputy Chairman: So be it.

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.

Dr. Glyn: I had wished to move an Amendment, after the word "reduced", which would have had the effect of removing the earnings rule altogether. Having taken advice from the Chair, I understand that such an Amendment would negate the Bill. I thought that it might be possible to increase the figure of £4, wherever it occurs, to £10, but I understand that to do that would also considerably alter the substance of the Bill.
In view of what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said, namely,


that he is looking at the whole of the earnings rule—he has not made a specific promise, but reading between the lines one understands that he intends to examine the provisions of the Clause and alter them to include other people as well —I decided not to move any of my Amendments.
But that in no way detracts from my view that the earnings rule must be considered in the near future and that, whatever the fate of the Bill, the Government must begin to think along the lines of the argument put forward today by hon. Members on both sides of the House, namely, that the earnings rule ought to be reviewed.
Because my Amendments would have been out of order, and would have been so ruled by you, Miss Harvie Anderson, and because the improvements which I wish to make have been covered by what my hon. Friend has said and his intention to consider including other categories of people, I thought it right not to move them. Had they been accepted they would have altered the substance of the Bill.
Whatever the outcome on the Bill may be, I hope that it is clear to the Government that strong views on the matter are held on these benches. We feel that, although the Government have done a great deal to help specific categories of people, we must now move into a new era and look at the whole matter afresh.
1.30 p.m.
The amount of money involved is not too great. My hon. Friend the Under-secretary of State was, I thought, very generous in giving the figure of £110 million and taking into account the effect of taxation at the same time. I think that the £80 million is by no means excessive. I take his point regarding the categories which have been left out of the Bill, and I am sure that the whole House is grateful to him for what he said. But one of the difficulties in introducing a Private Member's Bill is that one cannot think of everything.

Mr. Coombs: I fully understand the Minister's point about the wives of invalidity and retirement pensioners. An Amendment to deal with that could be moved in another place. It is estimated

that the cost would be about £500,000, and I should be only too happy to co-operate to that end.
As my hon. Friend the Minister said, it is a simple and straightforward Bill. I do not think that I can at this stage usefully add to what I said earlier. The retirement pensioners covered by the Bill deserve our support, and I hope that it will have an uninterrupted passage.

Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer: Although very much in favour of the principle of the Bill and of Clause 1, I do not consider that this is a suitable way of proceeding on a Measure of this kind, partly because of the almost total absence of members of the Opposition, who, I am sure, would strongly object if anyone criticised them for their lack of interest and concern for pensions and national insurance.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has been about the building very long this morning. There is a fair number of Labour Members round the back.

Mr. Gummer: I imagine that it would be out of order were I to discuss what those Labour Members round the back were doing round the back, and I am not sure that I know where round the back is.
My object in intervening is to express my feeling that, on a Bill of this importance, about which people have thought hard up to this stage, it is a pity that we should resort to the present method of taking the Bill through, without opportunity for the proper discussion which should be given to it. We have our system in the House for discussing matters of importance, and I feel that it would be better to follow that through in the usual way.
My hon. Friend the Minister made several points of great interest, and he spoke of the priorities. Questions of priority require people to make up their minds on points of difficulty, and I am sorry that the Bill should have been proceeded with in this way, although I give it my personal support.

Mr. Coombs: With respect, although I apreciate my hon. Friend's support, I must point out that he was not here when I began my speech, and he did not


hear the subsequent speeches of my hon. Friends.

Mr. Ernest G. Perry: He was round the back.

Mr. Coombs: The matter has been debated extensively, indeed exhaustively.

Mr. Gummer: Whether I was round the back or not is neither here nor there, and in any case, as I say, I am not sure that I know what it means. My objection is not to the admirable speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs), which I shall have great pleasure in reading, and to whom I apologise for my absence at the time. My point is that the speeches which I did hear, and the comments arising out of what the Minister said, show that this is a matter of great importance which should be discussed at some length and on which hon. Members ought to have a chance to make Amendments to the Bill if they wish. That chance is not properly given by the procedure chosen today, and I can only say that I am sorry that it has been chosen.

Dr. Stuttaford: There is another principle at stake here, the principle of the rights of the private Member. He should have the power to introduce a Bill and, if the House approves it there and then, so much the better. Too often, the private Member is forgotten. Today, not only have we heard my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) clearly and forcefully expressing his view, but we have heard a good number of speeches from the back benches on this side, and, I have no doubt, we should have heard speeches from hon. Members opposite as well, if they had not been round the back, supporting the Bill.
In view of that overwhelming support for a Private Member's Bill, it seems to me wrong that there should be any objection at this stage. My hon. Friend the Member for Yardley has used a certain device to get his Bill through the House. I wish him the best of luck, and I hope that the Bill goes through unimpeded.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: The hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer) has got himself into some difficulty by his last-minute inter-

vention in these proceedings. It ill befits him to talk of numbers. I count only eight hon. Members on the Government back benches. He knows that that is not a valid point to make on a Friday.
What matters is the importance of the argument. We are sitting here, not intervening, because we support the principle of the Bill and do not wish to impede progress.

Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer: It is quite reasonable for the right hon. Lady to make that point. But the record of our proceedings today will show that the speeches have come almost entirely from the Government side. It is a pity that we did not have the benefit of the views of hon. Members opposite on a subject of such importance as a change of this kind in our national insurance system. Even if it be a Friday, it is a pity that there are so few Members on the right hon. Lady's side.

Mrs. Castle: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman would be well advised, in his own interest, not to intervene further. He is only making matters worse. If he had been here, he would have known that the view of the Opposition was put from the Front Bench by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley). Those who want to see the Bill reach the Statute Book would do better not to make any more speeches, the Second Reading having been carried and no Amendments having been moved to Clause 1, the essential Clause of the Bill. Let us get it through all its stages.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

SHORT TITLE, CITATION AND COMMENCEMENT

Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill

Mrs. Castle: The Bill
shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by order appoint".
May we have an assurance from the Government that they do not intend to frustrate the decision of the House by refusing to appoint an early day for this purpose?

Mr. Dean: The Bill is still before Parliament, and I am sure that the right hon. Lady does not expect me to comment on a Clause which has not yet been passed.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

CONTROL OF PERSONAL INFORMATION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

1.39 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Coombs) on his success in getting his Bill through the Commons stages this morning. I was most impressed not only by the way in which he presented it but by the argument which he advanced, and my congratulations to him are all the greater since it is rare nowadays that we can get Private Members' Bills through on a Friday.
I was also impressed by the rather devastating attempts of the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer) to split the Tory Party in half. I cannot help feeling that he came in at the last minute like some "rich man's Leslie Huckfield" in a rather vain effort to tear the opposite benches apart. I am only sorry that he did not succeed—although perhaps it is as well that he did not—on a subject like this.
It is not the first time that my Control of Personal Information Bill has been introduced but it is the first time that it has reached the Second Reading stage. I only hope that it gets to the Committee stage and then completes its progress in this present Session of Parliament.
Basically, what the Bill does is to set up a data bank tribunal, and to establish

a comprehensive legal framework to govern and regulate the supply of private and confidential personal information. Before I go into the details of the Clauses, perhaps I may be allowed to give something of the background to this very important issue.
I believe that we are now approaching the stage—indeed, we may already have reached it—where there are so many people in Government Departments and private companies and agencies gathering so much personal information on us all that our personal liberty, our personal privacy and our personal freedoms are already very much endangered. I say that with the knowledge that not only is this happening because the information is going on computer but because it is being stored even in manual systems in filing cabinets.
The trouble is that once we introduce the computer into the storing and filing of information, the computer's particularly unique contribution is that it enables us for the first time to store vast quantities of information of a magnitude which we have never before been able to encompass or comprehend. Not only can we store very much more information on computer but we can have access to that information almost instantaneously. That is the unique contribution of the computer revolution; we can store much more information and access it accurately and faithfully almost instantaneously.
An even more threatening contribution, although I concede that it can be potentially beneficial as well, that the computer can make is that it enables us to integrate various categories of information, and it is in the potential of the machine to integrate various personal files that I see the main danger building up. Once a machine or an organisation can integrate various personal files, it is possible to obtain a computerised profile which becomes almost as real, or just as real, as the individual himself.
We are talking of a machine which in 10 years' time will be as commonplace as the telephone or television. It will be as commonplace to have are mote computer terminal in our living room as it is to have the telephone and the television. This is the potential of a multi-access system. This is the potential of the cheapening computer technology. This is the future spread of the machine.
I want to make it quite clear that I am not totally anti-computer. I am not a computer Luddite. I accept that the machine can bring vast benefits to mankind. It can, for instance, tell people when they should be in receipt of social security benefits rather than informing them to come along and claim those benefits. It can help to speed up law enforcement. It can greatly help the police.
I could give many examples of the way in which the machine can make its own contribution to improving our quality of life, improving our environment, and reducing the vast amount of human drudgery we still have. But I believe that the machine can do this only if we have a comprehensive legal framework in which to use it. At the moment, we do not have any such comprehensive legal framework.
I should like also to try to define some of the ingredients of what I mean by privacy, because I know that various hon. Members on both sides may want to go rather wider than the provisions of the Bill in such definition. I am also acutely aware that the Bill deals only with one small area of the much wider privacy issue, and also that once one starts getting into the bigger debate of what privacy is about we encounter very profound philosophical argument. That is why, in the hope of making progress, I have chosen in the Bill to concentrate on this rather small aspect.
We all ought to have the right to be let alone. We all ought to have the right to personal anonymity if we want to drop out of things for a time, just fade out for a time—go unrecognised for a time, which is certainly blissful sometimes in our present occupation. That is a fundamental right which despite the fact that we live in a fairly crowded island we should enjoy.
Perhaps most important of all is that though we have chosen to live in a fairly organised society, though we have chosen to live in a social organisation, and though we have taken the decision to opt into the community, we all have some right to control the quality and quantity of information about ourselves.
I recognise that under the compulsion of some rather threatening fines we have to give information to such people as census enumerators, as well as to Government Departments, but though we have

taken the decision to live in that organised society and may consequently have forfeited our right to some privacy, we should never forfeit completely the fundamental right to control the degree, the quantity and quality, and particularly the flow of information about ourselves.
Before enunciating the principles of the Bill, I should like to express my sincere thanks to Joe Jacob, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, who has given me a good deal of assistance in drafting the Bill. As hon. Members on both sides will know, it is rather difficult to draft Bills because of the legal complications involved, and I am most grateful to Joe Jacob for his assistance and encouragement. I am also most grateful to Tony Smythe and the National Council for Civil Liberties for all their support, because I am very much aware that they are the forerunners and pioneers in promoting such legislation in this House.
Having said that, I must say that my particular interest is that of an ordinary back bencher trying to protect the interest of his constituents. I do not think that I have any more need for privacy than has anyone else, nor do I think that I have any more need to hide anything than has anyone else. I am just as concerned as the next man about his individual liberties and the protection of his privacy, and it is because I believe that the freedoms of my constituents need protecting that I have introduced the Bill.
I will now enumerate the main provisions of the Bill. First of all, it aims to establish a data bank tribunal to licence all stores of information, although I shall add various qualifications later. Clause 1 establishes the tribunal. Clause 2 makes provision for experienced legal representation on the tribunal, and also makes sure that it is possible for lay members also to be nominated. The lay members can include members of the computer profession. So to all the computer people who have been jumping up and down outside the House saying that I threaten their profession I say that I am fully aware of the anxieties that they have expressed, and that provision has been made for computer people to be members of the tribunal.
I have also made provision for representation at any sitting of the tribunal


of both the legal and lay sides. I believe that both the legal argument and the industry's argument have to be represented at any sitting.
I have also made provision for the setting up of a data bank inspectorate. I believe that we must have someone in the field to make sure that the conditions of these licences are being adhered to, and that we need a fairly mobile inspectorate going round making sure that there are no unlicenced stores of information. The members of such an inspectorate have been rather colourfully called data guards or data police but, call them what we will, they will have a somewhat difficult job and, because of the nature of the industry, must be well clued-up on its present and future state.

Mr. Ernle Money: On Clause 2, can the hon. Gentleman help about the nature of the legal appointments he is thinking of? I appreciate the questions of remuneration will have to be dealt with by Money Resolution separately. But one matter that slightly concerns me here is whether the idea is that it will be another full-time legal job or the kind of thing which could be dealt with by the appointment of a solicitor or barrister of suitable standing on a part-time basis, therefore probably obtaining rather better talent for this important job than might be available on yet another full-time quasi-judicial appointment basis.

Mr. Huckfield: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Without being personal towards him, I am also aware of the concern of the legal profession about money. I appreciate that we must have someone who carries a fair amount of weight heading the data bank tribunal. I am fully cognisant of the hon. Gentleman's point. Bearing in mind the need for privacy in negotiations on salaries in these matters, this is a matter which ought to be left until later. But I appreciate the point.
The job of the data bank inspectorate will be to make sure that nobody is operating a store of information without a licence, to make sure that nobody is violating the terms and conditions of that licence and, above all, to report where inaccurate information is being maintained in a data bank. The inspectorate

will also have to have the power to enter into the premises where information is being stored and to examine the equipment.
Clause 5 sets out the relationship between the tribunal and the inspectorate. I envisage that the inspectors will be reporting to the tribunal. The tribunal will have powers, if it thinks fit, to initiate inquiries. In other words, I envisage a sort of three-tier organisation with the inspectorate being in the field, the tribunal conducting the inquiries on matters of major principle, backed up by recourse to the ordinary courts of the land, including the High Court. But the main point I want to make is that we have to have an inspectorate in the field generally supervising the industry on the job, because without that and with the vast developing industry of this nature we can very soon get out of touch.
Clause 6 says no store of information on more than 100,000 people shall be operated without a licence, although I have made provision that the House, by an Order in Council, may, if it wishes, for certain industries and professions, lower that number. I am thinking, for example, of certain kinds of activities of private investigators and other small data bank operators. In the Bill it is quite possible for that number to be lowered by an Order in Council with the approval of the House.
As regards the definition of "data bank", one has to be rather careful about this. But I am using in the terms of the Bill the fact that
No person who is responsible for the operation, maintenance or use of any store of information containing details of individuals numbering over one hundred thousand persons or any store of information which is regularly or habitually or customarily or frequently used in conjunction with other stores of information under substantially the same management or ownership …
In other words, I have made the definition as wide as possible. I hope that it will be the kind of definition which hon. Members will feel able to accept.
The issue of the licence will have to have regard to the general utility of that store of information, and to the cost of compliance with the terms of that licence. In other words, I want the tribunal to be a flexible instrument, although I want it to be a regularising body as well. But we have to take into account the utility


of the data bank and the cost of compliance with the terms of the licence. That licence will require the supply of information and the sources of information. The licence will also stipulate the right of print-out; in other words, the most important right of any individual to see his own files. There is provision in Clause 6 for an individual to see his files at least every two years, or every time he asks for them.
In Clause 6 we have set out a provision whereby the tribunal can adjudicate about licence conditions and fees. In other words, it will be very much in the hands of the tribunal to decide on each application's individual merit and on how this would best suit the operation of a data bank and, above all, how it would best suit the public.
The tribunal will have powers to order the erasure of information, under Clause 7 and for those people who have been given the initial information to be told about the erasure. It will also have power to take into account the damage which has been caused to an individual by violation of the terms of the licence, and the damage caused by fraudulent practices and the obtaining of information by wrongful practices.
I want the tribunal's powers to give compensation to take into account not only damage to an individual's family but also the financial gain for those who got information under wrongful conditions. In other words, provision has been made in Clause 7 to regulate completely the flow of information. Not only must the individual have the right of access to his own files, but the tribunal must have the power to update those files and make sure that they are absolutely accurate.
Clause 8 gives the tribunal power to revoke a licence. Clause 9 makes sure that failure to challenge information by an individual is an inadequate defence. Clause 10 is the fines section—£5,000 and/or five years on indictment to individuals; £10,000 or 10 years' imprisonment on indictment for members of the inspectorate or staff. In other words, they are fairly stiff fines. But after all, we are dealing with quantities of information which can be very damaging and very valuable.

Mr. John Page: The hon. Gentleman is explaining a complicated Bill, and he sped over the definition of the computer bank in Clause 6. The definition does not seem very clear. Is a bank statement a computer bank? Would that be considered to be an information bank? What kind of information is it? Is it mixed information, which is to be called a bank? Unless the hon. Gentleman explains what a computer bank is, hon. Members will find it difficult to follow.

Mr. Huckfield: I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been since the turn of the century, but we have stored information on much large numbers of individuals than that nowadays, and if the hon. Member reads Clause 6 he will find that it is specified there. I am talking about stores of information of over 100.000 people, in the main.

Mr. Page: What about banks?

Mr. Huckfield: I have put this in the Bill as a basic outline of the kind of things with which the tribunal will have the right to be concerned. I want the tribunal to be concerned with smaller stores of information, too. I want the House to have the right to lower the numbers in those stores of information.
In September, 1971, in central Government usage there were 192 computers installed, and 58 more that year. In other words, we are talking about fairly wide usage. If we look at that now famous report of the Civil Service Management Studies Department, entitled, "Computers in Central Government Ten Years Ahead", at paragraphs 139–141 we find quite fascinating proposals that the Department of Health and Social Security is to computerise lower level case work. In other words, central Government is already thinking about handling social security cases not by human beings but on a computer. I start to wonder about the other kinds of proposals which may already be in existence in the Department of Health and Social Security,
We also find other proposals to computerise job vacancies and unemployment. I should not have thought that the Secretary of State for Employment needed a computer to tell him that there are a large number of unemployed. There


is also the vast computer complex which will be operated by the Home Office, the National Police Computer, and the Ministry of Transport central vehicle licensing computer at Swansea. I am afraid that, despite the assurance that Ministers have tried to give me about this, I am far from satisfied about the number of people who will have access to that vast computer complex storing information on individuals, their cars, homes, names and addresses.
Everyone who owns a car will soon be accessible on file by the police and a large number of other people. The Inland Revenue has its PAYE centres and there are large computer installations at the Department of Defence, the Department of Trade and Industry and that magnificent system called Prism operated by the Civil Service Department. We are talking about very large computerised systems, very large personal information systems. In the report to which I have already referred, paragraph 182 on page 44 talks about the possibilities putting it all together and says:
For example, the development of links between DHSS, the London Clearing Banks, and Post Office Giro will be made easier because, fortuitously, all three will be operating with ICL System 4 computers.
Is the Civil Service Department really telling us that the clearing banks, the Post Office Giro and the Department of Health and Social Security is to be put together? I should hate to think that the people in Social Security will then have access to all bank information and to all Giro information. This is the kind of thing that this report is talking about.
Then we have that far more ominous reference on page 52, paragraph 207, to the creation of a Government transaction system, in other words putting it all together, all Government Departments on one big computer. We have already had references to this in the United States through the proposal to create a national data scheme. This is worrying, and people in this country ought to know about it. We ought to be concerned that even in this country there is already mention in a Government report of the fact that the Government think it would be nice, or a good idea, to put all transactions together at a central point. I shudder to think of the numbers of people in Government Departments who

will then have access to all individual details about us.
Now we are getting bigger local authorities and they compete with each other in the kind of computers they employ. Cities throughout the country brag that they have a bigger computer than the next. Then there is the Seebohm Report which initiated progress towards integration. In addition there are schemes like the one proposed to be operated by the London boroughs. It is already reminiscent of the kind of thing in Alameda County in California where the whole lot, including police files are put together.
I am sorry that the kind of risks, developments, proposals, integration mechanisms I have mentioned are already being put into practice or being seriously discussed here. Then we have proposals, even in this country, by certain local authorities who want to operate "risk registers". In other words, if a local authority thinks a person is a bit educationally subnormal or that a person is a public health hazard it puts him on its "risk register". I should hate to be on someone's "risk register" for the rest of my life. This is the kind of thing that will happen. It is this kind of proposal for integration which the computer makes possible and which will enable operators of computers and programmers to be able to build up complete computer profiles of us. In other words they will know us better by computer than they will know us as individuals. The computer profile will be even more real than the individual. I know that this has overtones of Big Brother and 1984 but unfortunately it is a real risk in the near future.
There is the charming little bit in the appendix of this report, paragraph 135, saying that, after all, we ought to watch the security of files. That is a report of 190 pages and there are five lines dealing with the security of files. That apparently is the kind of importance attached to the security of files in that Report. Time and again I have raised this question with the whole range of Ministers on the Front Bench. I know that the Minister of State is sympathetic towards some of my points.
Time and again I have been given the personal assurances of Ministers that I am jumping the gun, I have nothing to worry about, and that it is really a problem for my children's children. I am a


bachelor, and defiantly so, but I am already worried. It will take a lot more than reassurances from members of the Government Front Bench, whichever party is in power, to reassure me and make me feel confident because already just like the citizens of Media Pennsylvania when they discovered how much the FBI had on them, I keep thinking that we should be muttering to ourselves, "You had better not laugh, you had better not smile; because somebody in the Home Office has got it on a file". That is the kind of state towards which we are rapidly moving unless we watch some of these developments in the public sector.
In the private sector we have also had some interesting developments. I recognise that I am talking about private agencies which are only thinking about "going computer' and may not have done so yet. Although they may not have done so I still say that the danger exists now. I am talking about such organisations as the United Association for the Protection of Trade, with 15 million credit files, British Debt Services, with 8 million to 10 million files, which has by the way acquired a complete set of electoral registers and has a complete set of county court judgments over £10 since 1962. I am thinking about Tracing Services Limited, the people who employ others to pose as policemen and social security officers, who have already been told by High Court judges that they "employ an army of liars."
These are the people in the private sector who are going around busying themselves gathering private information about our credit-worthiness. Here I praise the Daily Mirror which in July 1971 ran quite a big exposé of the activities of some of these granters of credit and showed how they adjudicated that Members of Parliament were good credit risks while anyone who got his hands dirty was not supposed to be such a good risk. I respect and compliment the Daily Mirror for the way in which it has been bringing the activities of credit investigators to the attention of people.
Then we have all the nasty devices which these credit and private investigators can use. There is the polygraph. Fortunately we do not use the polygraph or lie detector extensively in this country,

but in the United States there is already a Journal of Polygraph Studies. If we look at it we will find that the March-April, 1971, issue was entitled "Breathing Analysis Part II." In other words they can operate the polygraph and find out our heartbeat rate and how much we sweat, and this is supposed to determine how much we are telling lies. These techniques are already employed in the United States for gathering information.
There are too the eavesdropping and bugging devices, and the laser-beam which can pick up a conservation 300 yards away. I am grateful to Mr. Peter Heims, of the Association of British Private Investigators, who almost religiously keeps me up to date unfailingly with the latest developments. I know that he is concerned about the use of these things just as much as I do, and I respect his sincere views which he would like the majority of his profession to follow. It is only because he has kept me up to date on some of the latest and nastiest American developments that I am able to give some of the more worth while and horrible examples today.
There is also the fact that these techniques could, if they are not being used on a large scale, be imported into the public sector in this country. In the Police Review of 21st January someone who is a detective chief inspector who had had the good fortune to go to the United States on a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship came back reporting:
I see the polygraph as being in inestimable help in the detection of crime and hope that the ethical objections to its use in this country will soon be overcome".
That is a senior British police officer talking about the use of lie detectors to give information to the police in this country. I hope that that opinion will not be endorsed by the Government.

Dr. Alan Glyn: In passing, the hon. Gentleman mentioned the possibility of the creation of a national computer centre. Am I correct in thinking that his Bill would not affect that form of information and that it would operate only in the private and independent sector? He rightly suggested that such a centre might be used as a Big Brother and that we should be indexed on a


national computer. I am not sure whether the Bill applies to that.

Mr. Huckfield: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention because it enables me to make the point more clearly. As a result of the licensing provisions in the Bill, the tribunal would license every data bank, whether in the private sector or the public sector.
With all these people busying themselves in finding out information about us, I wonder how much personal privacy we have today? Can we claim that the amount of personal privacy we had 10 years ago still exists? With all these people using these techniques or thinking about using them in the public and private sectors, can we claim that the Englishman's home is his castle? I cannot think that the Englishman's data bank will have much of a moat and portcullis.
We find ourselves, in our daily lives, followed round by people keeping files, dossiers and stores of information on us. It is recorded on the top of my bank file that I am "chubby, matey and about 30". That is all that I managed to see of it. It is explained in the Money Which? publication produced by the Consumers Association in December, 1971, how large numbers of bank managers obtain bank references from each other. If a person has a bank account, he is on file, and that information is passed around pretty freely.
Turning to the question of insurance, what happened recently in the case of the Vehicle and General Insurance Company? The liquidator of that company said that the London and Edinburgh General Insurance Company could have exclusive use of the V. & G. personal tapes for a month. As a result, 340,000 previous policy holders of the Vehicle and General Assurance company received detailed quotations from the London and Edinburgh General Assurance Company. Just think how much personal information was handed over from the liquidator to that insurance company. Now anybody who is in insurance can pay for the use of those tapes and personal details.
I keep getting letters about people who have been refused hire-purchase credit.

They cannot get hire-purchase credit, but they cannot find out why. They are not entitled to rent a television set, but they cannot find out why. Somebody somewhere has something on a file or dossier about them. In certain parts of the country, people who live on certain housing estates or have certain jobs or who have been involved in some bad business or whose marriage has gone wrong can be marked down as people who should not be given credit. There are market research organisations which are ferreting around and asking daft questions about us.
These are some of the examples concerning files which are being built up on us. They are not outrageous examples. We come across them in our every-day lives. During the recent strike, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Inland Revenue seemed to be exchanging quite freely information about miners' income tax rebates. Many coal miners in my constituency came to me and asked how the Department of Health and Social Security knew more about their income tax rebates than they did themselves. Information was being exchanged on some kind of basis—whether it included the National Coal Board I do not know.
Another every-day example concerns mortgages—if people can get them nowadays. Think how much information building societies obtain about us.
Take the example of a husband who is employed on a Government contract. He may be working in an establishment which does work for the Ministry of Defence. Security files containing personal information will be kept in that case.
Information is kept about rent and rate payments. I regard the Housing Finance Bill as potentially one of the most monstrous intrusions into personal privacy which has ever been perpetrated by any Government in this country. I do not know whether many hon. Members opposite have seen some of the means-test forms which council house tenants will have to sign in order to get a rent rebate. By signing those forms they will be signing away their birthright. I have seen a fair number of these local authority forms. They are consent forms to enable somebody in the local housing


department to look at people's bank balances, post office savings books or trustee savings bank books.
This is the Government who believe, or who believed in the past, in personal privacy and freedom. I hope that when the Minister of State replies—because the Secretary of State for the Environment has not said much about this matter—he will say something about the advice which the Department of the Environment has given local authorities about drawing up these means-test forms. If there were ever anything which was an encouragement to the building up of personal files and dossiers on people, it is the Housing Finance Bill.
Another every-day example concerns applications for jobs. I have had several applications this week for the job of official hostess to the Prime Minister and several curriculum vitae have been supplied to me. This personal information has been locked in my filing cabinet. Whenever we apply for a job we fill in a form.
There is also the information which people have to give in connection with the census. I am not satisfied by the safeguards which the Government think that they have provided in this respect.
There is the example of computerised reservation systems operated by airlines. American airlines for a period gave discounts if businessmen took their wives with them on a journey. They were told, "Bring along your wife and get a cheap fare". When the airline computer started writing to all the wives of businessmen who had travelled cheaply, it was discovered that when Mrs. So-and-so received her letter it had not been her who had gone on the journey. The airlines had to drop the practice, but this shows how computers can be used. As an adjunct to that, there are computer data bureaux springing up which are gathering in personal information handover-fist, and I do not know what they do with it.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): Would the hon. Gentleman explain his reference to the airlines? Why did the computer have any effect? If the airlines provide a cheaper form of travel for people who claim to be the wives of others, that information is in existence. I cannot see

the relevance of the reference to the computer in the example which the hon. Gentleman gave.

Mr. Huckfield: I am grateful for that intervention. The hon. and learned Gentleman is right in saying that this facility could be administered with or without the use of a computer. In this case, such a large number of people were travelling that for many airlines it was made possible administratively only because they used a computer. I accept that the job could have been done by using manual labour. But that is one example of the way in which companies can use computers.
We come across the examples which I have given in our daily lives. They are not examples which we encounter only if we go to other countries or which we shall encounter in 10 years time. They are all a threat, if wrongly used, to our individual privacy. Once people start to integrate all these files—and that is what the computer does—once they integrate the social security information with the airline information, with the insurance company information and with the personal file information, how much individual privacy will be left?
We have reached the stage at which all behaviour becomes behaviour for the record. Every individual item of behaviour, of spending, every habit, every preference, every taste, can be recorded for posterity, and can be recorded pretty accurately at that. We can then start to make value judgments. We can then start to devise norms, we can start to devise averages, and we can start to measure deviations from averages and norms. I am pretty proud of being a deviation from the norm. I hope that every hon. Member of the House may be proud of being a deviation from the norm. However, that would be the kind of society we could easily construct once we started to put on file all these personal details.
I accept that there are on the other side of the coin, to to speak, benefits which could accrue to society from some of this if only the information were used properly and under proper safeguards. The problem is that many people in the computer industry do not start to think about safeguards. It is, unfortunately, an industry in which 90 per


cent, of the time of its members is spent in sending Press releases to one another about the latest information. If only the computer industry would show far more social responsibility I should be a lot happier about the nature of these developments.
I admit that my Bill sets up a fairly comprehensive machinery. I accept that many hon. Members on the other side of the House will say that all this machinery is not necessary. But I say that the problem is already so complex, already so diverse, that we have to think about this level of comprehensive machinery, and I say that the kind of provisions which I have proposed to enable the tribunal to operate would provide flexibility in operating its licensing procedure. This is a comprehensive machinery which, I hope, is flexible and can move with the times.
I am also aware that the Government may not be able to accept my Bill in full, but I hope that even if they cannot accept the Bill they will at least have the courage to introduce some of its essential ingredients in a separate form. There is an urgent priority. We must in this country have legislation right now to enable individuals who are refused credit to be told why. There are examples in Australia and there are examples in the United States of enabling legislation by which people who are refused credit can demand to see the sources of the information upon which credit is refused. I think that that is an urgent priority.
We have to establish it in public institutions, in the public sector, and in the private sector, that in all computer systems we have to have also a system of "access control", we have to have a system of "audit trials". Those are the two basic requirements—control of access and a record of who has been getting at the information. We have to have a code of conduct for computer personnel. They are highly mobile. The professional computer processing manager tends to flit about the industry. But these are people who carry secrets with them. I applaud the endeavours of the British Computer Society which gives general support to the principles contained in my Bill, and the many efforts which there are to devise a code of conduct in the industry.
Even if my Bill does not get out of Standing Committee this Session, even if it does not get on to the Statute Book this Session, I hope that it serves to promote a far more comprehensive, a far more fullsome public discussion of this issue. We still take things very much for granted when we fill out a Government form, when we sign a hire-purchase contract, when we sign a rental agreement, but we ought to appreciate that we need to look for effective safeguards on the confidentiality of the information. If this Bill does nothing else than to make people examine the right of confidentiality, if it does nothing else than to make people think, or to ask questions, about confidentiality and its effective control, it will serve a very useful purpose.
In the long run, but in the not-too-distant future, society in this country will be what I can only call a goldfish society. We shall end up like goldfish swimming around in a bowl, every individual activity being observed and recorded. Our most precious commodity is time, and we must act now.

2.25 p.m.

Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer: I am very pleased to have the opportunity of speaking on this subject because I believe this to be a very important Bill and I am sorry that its provisions have not so far found as much favour with successive Governments as they ought. The hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) pointed to the fact that many felt this to be a comprehensive Bill, felt the situation to be not serious enough yet for it, and felt that we do not need to do anything about it in this generation but can leave it to another.
I believe that the opposite is true, and that, in many ways, a Bill of this kind has been necessary for some time. We as a House are charged, perhaps above all things, with the protection of the individual from the effects of the actions of other individuals, and one of the problems which has been increasingly apparent has been the extra power which has been given to people and institutions through the mechanism of the computer.
The hon. Member has shown that there are situations in which the computer


does not change the nature of the information but merely makes that information usable in a way in which it was not usable before. In the case, for instance, of the airline which was able to send letters to the wives or so-called wives of the various business men who had gone on journeys, it is not good enough to suggest that that information could have been there anyway, even if one did not have a computer. The seeking of that information, the names and addresses, and the use of that information for mailing to the so-called wives, would just not have been possible manually, and bigger companies could now transfer information, so that while it was given for one purpose, it could be used in another way.
What is perhaps more important is that one never knows for what that information is to be used. There is a degree of bewilderment among the public in this country about it. It could be dangerous to fill in a form for a mortgage if that information were to be used to check whether one has a television set, for instance.

Mr. Money: Will my hon. Friend not agree that in collecting and keeping such information there is the danger of error, if one were made, being perpetuated and spread?

Mr. Gummer: I was coming to that point, and obviously it is true. If one can store information one can store wrong information; and not only that, but that wrong information can be moved from one place to another. The difficulty of catching wrong information and putting it right is great, and becomes increasingly greater.
However, we should not move to specifics of the computerised information situation before we have looked at this to see it as part of an ever-growing problem, and the hon. Member for Nuneaton did so. Information can be built up about individuals and used again and again. I cite a recent instance. We had on a television programme a re-run of an answer given by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition to a question on a referendum of the public; we were able to see precisely what it was he had said, and to hear the tone and the inflection which he used. We know how embar-

rassing this has been not only to himself but to other Members of the Opposition. That was a pictorial record of an answer given to a specific question.
The right hon. Gentleman said that even though it might be electorally disadvantageous to him he would not in any situation or in any way agree to the holding of a referendum on the Common Market. That is a great embarrassment to him and his party. It shows the difference between the situation of the right hon. Gentleman in 1972 and the situation of his predecessors a hundred years ago. There would then have been a written report of what was said—much less powerful and less difficult to explain away. This sort of information control, holding and retrieval could be extremely embarrassing.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: I accept the point about the accurate pictorial representation, but would not the hon. Gentleman accept that it would be equally illuminating to have a re-run of the Prime Minister saying that he intended to secure the full-hearted consent of the British people to going into the Common Market?

Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman will I am sure raise other examples of what I am presenting. I am also suggesting that it is possible to alter the film and so cut and change it that a presentation different from the true one may be given. We have the example of another television programme which was attacked from both sides of the House—"Yesterday's Men"—in which film was used to give a presentation different from what actually happened. If doctoring can be done with film, so it can be done with material on a computer.
The first problem is what information is kept and how it is kept. The computerisation of a company's payroll or accounts has always been regarded as normal, but I recently received a letter from a solicitor saying that I owed a particular company a certain sum of money. I was lucky enough to be able to find the receipt for that money and I wrote to the company enclosing a copy of that receipt. I received a letter from the company apologising and saying that the trouble had arisen because I had paid 2p more than the sum which had been requested, which had resulted in


the computer throwing it up as a debt. I had paid £80·52 instead of £80·50 and for this reason the two sides did not equalise. I had a credit of £80·52 in one box and a debit of £80·50 in another. This was probably a badly programmed computer, but with centralised computer arrangements I should have been regarded as someone who had owed money for several months when that money had already been paid.

Mr. Money: Will my hon. Friend divulge for what amount this firm of attorneys was dunning him? Was it for 2p or for the original figure?

Mr. Gummer: I am not sure what "dun" means, but I think that is what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) would refer to as a pejorative comment.
In the old days when accounts were kept manually there was plenty of opportunity for people to notice odd occurrences and to wonder whether there was any connection between two events. There was often a person in an accounts department with the job of editing the orders and statements and checking them.
When one considers how computer information is processed, one sees the great dangers which arise from misinformation being fed into computers. Information is filled in on a sheet of paper, and a girl sits in front of a machine and punches out the information on a carrier. That information is fed into the computer and is sometimes checked and sometimes not. There is an old and much-used phrase about computers—garbage in, garbage out—which means that if inaccurate information is put into the computer, inaccurate information comes from it. It is very easy to put inaccurate information into a computer, because the method of computerisation is to bring information down to its simplest form so that it can be stored electronically. The simpler the information and the more common the method of imprinting the easier it is for the wrong key to be pressed or for the information to be wrong in the first place. The mere transference to the computer of the information from the sheet which has been filled in can easily result in accuracy.
This is all part of the traditional problem of power. We have always sought to restrict the use by the executive, whether the Government executive or large companies and associations, of the power they have over other people's lives. It is the use of this power of information which the Bill seeks to restrict, and it is as important to restrict it in private industry and private hands as it is to restrict it in public hands. There is no distinction between these two groups of people. There must be protection for the individual from anyone who has sufficient money to build a data bank. There are some people who should not run data banks. A person who would never be given a licence as a bookie or as a publican can set up a data bank. There is no restriction on the kind of person who can run a data bank save that of financial ability. There is also no restriction on the people who can use data banks. A person of no fixed abode with an unattractive background can get information from data banks, and we have seen examples of this in recent years.
The only distinction between the Government service and the private sphere is that the Government service has claimed over the years that it is careful to whom it gives information. I am as unhappy about that at the hon. Member for Nuneaton. There are many and glaring examples of the Government service providing information to people who had no business to get it, some arising from sheer carelessness or bad procedure and others from the fact that nobody in the Government service had got down to deciding who should have what. One of the most important requirements is for a clear and definite list of people who are allowed access to certain kinds of information.
I will move to the specific difficulties which arise. First, we have the problem of information which has been coded for one purpose and which somebody is then able to use for some other purpose. It is important to see that information provided by an individual for one purpose is kept for that purpose and that the individual has a right to say whether that information should be moved to some other system.
The second matter which is worrying is the question of misinformation, which


was mentioned in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Money). Here we have a specific duty to protect the individual from the dangers of misinformation. The examples are numerous, and I shall mention one.
In these days of the consumer revolution, when more and more people are rightly concerned about the servicing and quality of goods they buy, it is important that we should have the right to say to a bad manufacturer, "Since these goods are not up to standard, I shall not pay the bill." If somebody goes into a restaurant and the food offered him is filthy, he may well say when the bill is presented, "I am sorry, but I do not intend to pay for the food". The restaurateur could then say, "You are a man of no credit and, because you refused to pay for the food I have provided, I will see that on some computer somewhere you are not afforded credit facilities"—even though the person concerned is a credit-worthy person. If these things are allowed to happen, we shall gravely endanger human rights.
I take a case which will interest the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) and which involves the soliciting of goods and services. There is one gentleman who still sends me bills for a cookery book that I never wanted, do not like, but refuse to send back because it will cost me postage. I did not ask for it, but I still have it in my possession and am billed for it. I am sure that my legal position is correct. However, it is possible for that company to see that my name is put on a list somewhere for not paying a bill which I did not incur. I have no legal right to insist that my name be removed from that list. I can write to them but they do not answer letters. This is a grave infringement of people's rights which we should strongly oppose.
I declare an interest here in the sense that I once worked for a company that sold goods by mail. One system of selling goods by mail is to gather a list called a clean list, which may later be sold to somebody else who wants to sell books, postcards, clothes or whatever it may be. It will be known that if one uses a credit card system, one tends to receive from the credit card companies all kinds of material. I am not saying

that this is wicked or appalling, but I believe that this must be made public so that people know about it and can complain about it. They should at least be able to say that they do not want their name to be involved.
In former times when we were living in small tribes, one of the great tribal feelings was that a man's name was important. It was part of his personality and was the thing that stood for him as a person. Some element of this feeling remains with us today. Our name is our property and it is important that it is used as we wish it to be used. Therefore, we should know what is done with any information and we should be in a position to be able to alter correct or stop any such information. Two elements are involved. The first is to know what is happening, and the second is to have the opportunity to be able to control it.
I should like to mention a specific area where this is particularly necessary. There is growing public bewilderment about the complication of the life we live. We all know that it is every day becoming more difficult for people to sort out all the things that impinge on them. For example, there are all sorts of requests for information, tax demands, parking tickets—all those things which are part of our complicated overcrowded life in this island. The problem of public bewilderment in this matter must be considered by the Government. The public do not understand what is happening and they have a good idea that some things are going on which they do not want to go on. It is this bewilderment behind which many people and Governments have sheltered, but it is a great danger to our national life. Once it is felt that everything is being taken out of people's hands so that they have no control over their own lives, it is difficult to call upon them to be responsible and reasonable human beings.
I wish to discuss one subject on which it is felt that something is being put over on the public; in other words, that information taken from members of the public may be used in ways other than those for which the information is originally demanded. I take an extremely contentious example, the provisions of the Housing Finance Bill. I am completely in favour of that Bill and have


believed in it for many years. I am sorry that no Government has undertaken such a Measure before and I am sure that the poorest sections of our community will benefit from its provisions. I feel that those who try to terrify the public by attacking the Bill will reap a whirlwind when it is seen how successful it is. If we go in for more sophisticated ways of obtaining information, for example the sort of information we need to eradicate poverty in our society, we must also see to it that that information is not bandied about.
I was appalled recently to find that if somebody appears before a rent tribunal and attacks the rent which has been fixed in order to demand a lower rent, that information is publicly known in a way I find unacceptable—though it is publicly known only to the few who attend the rent tribunal hearing. I do not believe it is right that this should happen, and I feel that we should look at these matters more critically than we have in the past. Such information is restricted in its damage or curiosity value since only a small number of people are likely to be present when it is divulged. But if that information is stored on a computer and is available to anybody in the local housing department who wants to see it, and is fed in by the curious marital device of coupling one computer with another—computers are polygamous rather than monogamous—that information can be passed through computer after computer and no one knows where it may come out or who may use it in the end.
What worries me is not only the danger of the use of the information in terms of the individual concerned, but that the information may be wrong and that the individual may not want it to be used for the purpose for which it is eventually used. I am concerned that people may eventually become so frightened by this trend that they will cease to feel any desire to co-operate in any reasonable demand made upon them. I am thinking of the Census and the kind of means test that is necessary if the community is to provide help for those in need.
This matter gets even more serious when we look to the possibility as foreshadowed in the Finance Bill of negative

income tax. There are remarkable advantages. NIT, as I believe it is known in some quarters, and the tax scheme to which reference was made earlier will be of great benefit to the people of Britain. It is also true, however, that it may do great damage if that information is fed into all the other arrangements which can be made.
I believe, therefore, that this is a very necessary Bill. I am sorry that so far proposals of this kind have found such little favour with either Government. It is not that it is too early. In many senses it is too late, because it will be more difficult to control information and to see whether the information is right when it has been collected under conditions which are far from ideal and which have not been subject to the rigorous controls proposed in the Bill than it would have been if we had started with this kind of arrangement when computers first began to alter the whole nature of the collection of information.
For this reason, it is essential for this House not only to give the Bill a Second Reading but to see to it that hon. Members are not put off by excuses of committees sitting and looking at it and the problems involved in the internal arrangements of Government Departments. This may be as important to human rights and personal freedom as any of the other great steps that we have taken. To refer to the Magna Carta may be putting it too high, but not much too high. It is the control of one's personality that we are discussing. We are talking about the individual's rights to be himself and not to be taken away from by people who feel that it is their right not only to get information from him but then to sell, swap, buy and exchange information which is personal and individual.
If the Government find it impossible to give time to this Bill so that it may complete all its stages in this House, I hope that they will realise that it is a matter which should figure largely in their legislative programme in the coming year and that before the end of this Parliament we ought to see legislation which will enable us to feel that we have laid the foundation for the protection of human liberty in an area which looks as threatening as the kind of power once held by over-mighty barons.

2.53 p.m.

Mr. John Page: We have listened to two brilliant and eloquent speeches. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer) has pulled out all the stops, and I think that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) must feel that his Bill might be described as a mini-Magna Carta. He must be congratulated on continuing with an idea which he first adopted.
Since I have been in this House I have had an enormous number of brilliant ideas. I have thrown them around a couple of times before dropping them, only to find them adopted a couple of years later by my own Front Bench and to find some frightfully bright chap who probably is now a Minister of State getting the credit for the delving and initiating which was originally mine. The hon. Member for Nuneaton might almost be described as the George Orwell of Nuneaton. I approve of his continuous opposition to room watch by private investigators.
I do not wish to be considered a non-libertarian. However, I consider that the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West couched their speeches in a little too high a key. I hardly feel that this is a suitable subject for a Private Member's Bill. Though the airing of it is very beneficial and will perhaps be a prod to the Government, nevertheless, with the Younger Committee expected to report shortly and with the Computer Society also investigating the matter, I feel that it is appropriate for the Government to wait before taking action of the kind proposed.
At the end of his speech, the hon. Member for Nuneaton said that we are concerned with access control and the code of conduct. I feel that the Bill goes too far in dealing with both these matters. Having said that, it is necessary to realise that their importance is highlighted by the Government's determination to enter the EEC. Traditionally, the countries of the Six especially France and Italy, are used to the idea of central files and dossiers being kept. Such files carrying a large amount of information about individuals are often kept at local police stations. In that way a great deal of individual information is available.
However, I question the ethos of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West when he says that we are defending individual personality. Just because details are written down, I do not think that they present a picture of an individual's personality. The recording of speeches and the tele-recording of television programmes produces a much clearer picture than the written word. A mere list of data does not attack individual personalities—unless, of course, the data are wrong.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's kind remarks, though I shudder at his description of me as the George Orwell of Nuneaton. Has the hon. Gentleman ever seen on a cathode-ray tube display a computerised profile? I do not know whether he has had the experience of touching the button of a terminal and instantaneously flashing on the screen a complete list of characteristics. Not only is the speed with which the information can be put on the screen frightening, but its completeness gives a very revealing picture of an individual.

Mr. Page: I will deal with that as I continue my speech. Surely much of that information is available in "The Times Guide to the House of Commons" and "Who's Who".

Mr. Huckfield: All in one place.

Mr. Page: I am not yet convinced that the collation of information which is separately available and not of a confidential nature is a disadvantage. I hope to prove that there are more advantages than disadvantages in the collation of this information.
Secondly, in connection with our application to join the EEC and continental attitudes to information, we already have a more computerised society than the Six. This is another point which underlines the urgency which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West so eloquently set out.
I take issue with the two hon. Members who have spoken on this subject. Much of the information which they say should be kept confidential has been given voluntarily by the individuals concerned to different organisations.
We are living in a credit society. When my hon. Friend got his dinner bill for


£80 and had that extra 2p charged for butter, which possibly he did not have—or there may have been a muddle over that 2p—I am sure that is the only thing in that bill that could have been about that figure—the fact that he paid that bill on credit automatically shows that he is prepared for his creditworthiness to have a degree of publicity.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: I wish not to refer to the particular bill. That was an ordinary statement of something bought in a shop. That is a different thing, as one is buying something on credit. Whereas one may be perfectly willing for one's creditworthiness and information thereunto to be given to an individual firm for certain specific purposes, surely that is altered very much if that information is used by other firms for other purposes. It is like saying that one is prepared to have a full physical examination by a properly accredited doctor, but, for example, many young ladies would not agree to do that for my hon. Friend.

Mr. Page: I must get up before my hon. Friend makes too many other points from my speech. I will cite the question of the credit card. I have never owned a credit card. I decided that the personal dangers of a natural spendthrift, who even now finds it easier to pay for something he cannot afford by cheque which he would probably refuse to buy if he had to use notes. The risk of carrying a credit card is too great. My wife has two of three credit cards. I find it much more convenient when buying something that is too expensive for us to buy for it to arrive in her mail a few months afterwards.
Once one accepts the obligation, privilege, or whatever it is, of using a credit card and joining the credit card society, that card will give one credit in possibly tens of thousands of different establishments. It is surprising that people should get jumpy, if that credit card is acceptable in tens of thousands of establishments, if they get a lot of boring literature sent to them through the mail because they are on a list which has been provided by that credit card organisation.
When people fill in football pools, there is a box at the bottom which says, "If I win I do not wish my name to be disclosed". It would probably be

attractive to credit card users if, when they applied for their cards, they were able to stipulate, "I do not wish my name as a credit card holder to be supplied to any other organisation without my permission". That would seem to be covered by the simple code of conduct, not this great Bill, which the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

Mr. Ronald Bray: I have checked my credit cards, and on none of them is my address quoted. I am not trying to sell any particular type of credit card, but I make the point that in my experience all the firms who supply the services of a credit card are careful to ensure that the details of their membership are not released to a third party.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Rubbish.

Mr. Bray: I have been a member of one organisation in particular for 14 years, and I have not received even one circular through the post as a result of that membership. Furthermore, that organisation removes all evidence of address, and so on, to prevent people from circumnavigating the good intentions of not recording any identity.

Mr. Page: I thank my hon. Friend for reminding me of something that I had thought about while listening to someone else's speech but had forgotten to mention. From a commercial point of view, the list of credit card holders and credit customers is a secret document which, if made available to other creditors, could be extremely damaging. It should be kept in the inner safe. One could say that it could be supplied to people who are not direct competitors, that if someone is selling boots he might let his list to go to people who sell books, but, in general, the point made by my hon. Friend carries a lot of weight.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: It is true that the holder of such a list would not sell it to another credit card organisation, but he could take a turn on other products. He could go to the manufacturer of boots and shoes, or clothes and say, "Sell your products through me, for which I will take 2½ per cent." or 5 per cent., or 10 per cent. or whatever it may be. The serious thing is that there is no end to the people who and companies which can be used in that way.

Mr. Page: If it is worth someone doing that, let him. I do not mind, provided that what is sent through the post is not offensive. To me that is a matter of far greater importance and I should like the Minister to deal with that in due course.
I have talked about the credit card society, but we must remember that ours is a credit society. Many people hire television sets and hire-purchase furniture, motor cars and so on. Unless there are important safeguards to suppliers in the creditworthiness of individuals the opportunities for those who are creditworthy to buy goods on credit will be reduced. I should be delighted if the shops at which my wife has accounts to check to see that she is a good buyer and check on those who are not, because if there are too many bad debts the cost of the goods will rise. I am all for strict credit checking, because in that way bad debts are avoided and the cost of goods comes down.

Mr. Money: Surely my hon. Friend appreciates that even with the strictest credit checking the most enormous whales slip through the net? Many hon. Members are engaged in defending an alleged long-term fraud case across the road. The prosecution case is that although some of the principals were checked at a late date during the alleged fraud, despite the fact that the bills had gone on for months they were passed out by the credit checkers.

Mr. Page: Credit control in any undertaking is difficult and serious. If someone is allowed 60 days and he gets goods on 30th March, and then during April, May and June he gets more goods, things become even more difficult. Here again, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West said, the computer has not got that sixth sense which so many accounts clerks used to have. But the mere fact that the system of credit control which is operated is inefficient does not require that we avoid it altogether.
I come to the question of the interdependent society. My hon. Friend thought it unwise that information given in connection with the Housing Finance Bill should be used for other purposes. This information is volunteered by individuals who wish to receive a rent rebate. People who wish to receive unemploy-

ment benefit or social security benefits go voluntarily to seek them.
It is necessary for the community properly to safeguard the funds of the community, and it is necessary, therefore, to ascertain whether those who call themselves unemployed are, in fact, doing a job. The House will recall the report by the inspectors of the Department of Employment in South end who carried out an investigation in depth into applications for unemployment benefit in that area. The results were fairly startling. A considerable number of applicants withdrew their application or said that they had found employment.
Social security benefits costs the country a good deal now. It is important to see that the privileges of those benefits is not abused. I should like to see a system instituted, with proper access control, to make a more serious effort to ensure that such benefits are not abused.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: Mr. Leslie Huckfield rose——

Mr. Page: No. Mr. Speaker has a data bank of his own, and those who speak for too long are likely to be remembered. Quite rightly, Mr. Speaker takes a certain view of their opportunity to speak on other occasions, and I very much want to avoid a black mark in that data bank.
We have discussed some of the disadvantages of the availibility of information, but what about the advantages of making collated information available? The hon. Member for Nuneaton said that medical information should not be too freely available. I should be very ready for my medical history to be freely available, on a push button basis, in every hospital in the country so that at any time reference could be made to it in an emergency. A person taken to hospital after a motor accident, perhaps for an emergency operation, may have an allergy to certain types of medication. If it were possible for his medical particulars to be thrown at once on to a screen for the information of the medical staff, it might make all the difference between life and death for him.
In the same way I am quite prepared for my boring statistics about bronchitis and knock knees to be available to the hospitals. I should like any of my useful organs, too, to be used for transplant


operations for the benefit of other people. In that instance, it would also be helpful for them to know that I am blind in the right eye, because otherwise they might try to transplant the wrong cornea.
I believe that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Nuneaton are getting a little petty. Let us have genuine control of all access and let us have a code of conduct, but let us not pretend that every vital statistic about ourselves is as vital as all that and needs a Bill of this length and size.

3.15 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Davidson: The hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) has given us a fascinating insight into his organs, whether trans planted or otherwise, and, indeed, has given me and other hon. Members some very interesting information about him self which we did not previously know——

Mr. John Page: I do not mind.

Mr. Davidson: —but the hon. Gentleman has chosen to do that. What the Bill is about is the protection of the interests of those who, for whatever reason, innocent or otherwise, do not choose to give information about themselves.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield), as previous speakers have done, on the persistent way in which he has pursued this topic throughout successive Parliaments. I only hope that someone, somewhere—possibly the hon. and learned Gentleman the Minister of State, Home Department—will do something about it sometime.
Widespread fears have been expressed, and far from the somewhat complacent attitude adopted by the hon. Member for Harrow, West, in his usual charming way, my objection is that not enough people express those fears. If it were brought to the attention of people just how much information about them was stored, and the possible uses to which it could be put, I am sure that there would be far more cries of protest.
I am equally astonished, and the hon. Member for Harrow, West has just proved my point, at how freely people

give information about themselves—frequently quite unnecessary information. But just let one ask a Government Department to give the information on which it is taking such and such a decision, and what is happening to the information itself, and not only will the officials not say but they will immediately shelter behind the Official Secrets Act. So what Government Departments do is to ask for the maximum information from people and, at the same time, feel absolutely safe and secure in the knowledge that they need not divulge any information whatever because they are protected by Statute. What my hon. Friend is trying to do is to give ordinary people the same protection that Government Departments enjoy.

Mr. Carlisle: I am sure that the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. ArthurDavidson) will agree that, equally, that similar protection protects the misuse by Government officials of that information, and is therefore in this way a protection for the individual from whom that information has been obtained. In other words, the restrictions which prevent the Government telling the hon. Gentleman the use to which they put the information equally prevents individual officials misusing it for some purpose other than that for which it was intended.

Mr. Davidson: Obviously, the Official Secrets Act has some purpose, although I have yet to find out what it is. It may be just that purpose. But I do not suggest, of course, that all Government officials willy-nilly misuse information. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows me well enough to appreciate that I would not do that. But the secrecy with which Government Departments operate—under any Government; I am not suggesting it is just the present Government—is in marked contrast to the information they expect to receive from people about themselves.
The Bill is merely to provide a legal framework by which the information that people give will be kept secret, and to ensure that the Government store or private body store shall not willy-nilly dispose of information to other people. This is only part and parcel of a general debate about privacy. I have a feeling that the hon. and learned Gentleman will say—as perhaps any other Minister would


say—"There is nothing we can do about it at present. The Younger Committee is sitting and examining the whole law of privacy, and we shall have to wait and see whatever recommendations that Committee makes". But I feel that the general law of privacy is a non-starter. I have always felt so. If we are to deal with protection of the public's right to be left alone, we shall inevitably have to do it in a piece-meal way, dealing with one particular area of privacy at a time. This particular Bill, in dealing with this particular problem, is a start—I put it no higher than that—although I well understand the reservations that the hon. and learned Gentleman on the Front Bench may well have.
It seems elementary to me, as I am sure it seems to the House, that the information which private people and private firms store about persons should be kept private. The hon. Member for Lewis ham, West (Mr. J. Selwyn Gummer) made a point which I had intended to make in a slightly different way. In the last Parliament, in which the hon. Gentleman and I served on the same Committee, we had to deal with the problem of social consequences flowing from unrestricted gaming in this country. So we set up a Gaming Board to license the sort of people who would run casinos and other gaming establishments. If we can do that it seems astonishing that we should not attempt to license the sort of people who can control, be put in charge of or have access to hoards of private information about law-abiding citizens of Britain. The vast majority of people are law-abiding. I see absolutely no objection to a licensing system which would ensure the respectability, at least, and the bona fides, of those put in charge of data banks and people who have access to the information contained in them. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will take that proposal very seriously.
Much comment has been made today about the information on bad debts. The hon. Member for Lewisham, West told us very graphically and dramatically about his terrible experience when he had paid 20p more than he should have done. But that often happens. There is a whole variety of reasons why people do not want to pay a particular bill. They

may dispute the quality of the goods. They may say that it has already been paid, and insist that it has been paid. But once a person is put down as a non-payer, for whatever reason, he stays as a non-payer. His credit rating is affected. His ability to obtain goods on credit, on hire purchase or by any other means, is affected for the rest of his life. There should really be some means by which that sort of information about such a person can be checked by that person so that if it is inaccurate it can be erased once and for all or corrected.
What happens to this misinformation is equally important. Often it does go into the hands, for reward or otherwise, of sleazy, disreputable private detectives who use sneaky, underhand and often open-handed methods of thuggery to induce or blackmail people to pay bills which they are disinclined to pay frequently for some honest and open reason. I certainly hope that something will be done about the licensing of private detectives and the sort of people who openly indulge in that kind of tactic. If it is necessary to apply for a licence before opening a betting shop or gaming establishment then it should be necessary to apply for a licence to become a private detective, entitled to snoop and pry into the lives of other people.
There is a far greater danger in computer banks and the ability of computers to store minutiae of information about people. I agree that information stored in a computer is no different from information stored in a file. What the computer does is to enable far more information to be stored in a smaller space for a longer time. Because of that there is a great danger in the passing of information from one computer to another and the total build-up of a picture of a person.
I do not claim to be a technical expert, but what happens I gather is that computers are so sophisticated that they can build up from the information they have been given the information that it has been chosen not to give them. That is a danger not necessarily or not so obviously inherent in the storage of information by ordinary means. I do not think that the hon. Member for Lewisham, West exaggerated when he spoke about the danger to freedom. The


unrestricted use of data banks, the unrestricted ability of these banks to integrate information constitutes a potential threat to the greatest freedom of all, the freedom of speech. I do not believe that I exaggerate. Many of us complain that not enough people use their vote. People are disinclined to vote, for whatever reason.
One of the reasons why people are disinclined to express a political view in this country is that they do not want to be involved. That is a reasonable sensible viewpoint of which no one would complain. Equally, a lot of people are concerned at the growing amount of information they feel they have to give to "somebody up there", "they", "those in authority", the people who have power. Integrate those two feelings, a disinclination to be involved and the feeling that people know far too much about one, and people will be frightened to express a vote at all because they fear that somehow, they do not know quite how, because there is so much information about them, the Government, people in power, will know how they voted. Not only will there be apathy which leads to a dictatorship in the end—I do not want to be over-emotive—but equally there will be a disinclination to become involved and, most important, to express dissent, to express criticism, to have a go at the people in authority. That will be the death of freedom as we know it in this country.
Having used terms which the hon. Member for Harrow, West would dispute, I wish to make one or two final observations. There is a danger of what I would call depersonalisation of the individual as a result of the vast amount of information which he is expected to give, sometimes under the threat of a dire penalty. The people who objected to filling in some of the information asked for on the census form had a point. Much of the information asked for seemed quite unnecessary to me, though no doubt the Minister would say that it was wanted so that we might know what future generations would need by way of roads, hospitals, and so on. I realise that there is a credit side to the use of computers. I am not a Luddite in that respect.
However, the excessive use of computers depersonalises people. They become unemployment statistics rather than unemployed persons. They are figures in an opinion poll rather than people who have expressed political views. They might even be among the distinguished group of people called "doubtfuls", for whom many people have great respect and they spend a great deal of time in trying to convert them. They may even become something worse, namely, typical examples of something. I may become "a typical example" rather than me, and I would rather be me than a typical example. Gradually, instead of the computer picture being like me, I tend to become like the computer picture. That is the ultimate process of depersonalisation and of 1984-ism which everybody in this country would wish to avoid.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton on the way in which he has presented and handled this very important Bill. I hope that this hardly well-attended debate—I have seen better attended debates, even on a Friday—will show people that there are Members who realise that there is a danger in the massive demanding, storing and passing on, willy-nilly and uncontrolled, of information. It may well be that this problem will have to be dealt with by a law of privacy. I have spoken in previous debates against that, because a law of privacy is impractical as long as it is essential, as I believe it is, to exempt the Press from it.
One of the most important duties which the Press carries out—and it is an intrusion of privacy—is in respect of what I would call its expose type stories when, in exposing perhaps a fraudulent business or practice, it has to use underhand methods or methods such as those used by The Times in exposing the fraud at Scotland Yard which, if we had a general privacy law, would have been impossible.
I hope that the Government will take the Bill seriously. The strength of feeling expressed today shows that there are people who consider it to be a serious and useful Measure. I hope that at some time, sooner rather than later—because later might well be too late—a Bill such as this will reach the Statute Book.

3.34 p.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Mark Carlisle): The hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson) has just said that even for a Friday this has not been a very well-attended debate. I do not know about its quantity of attendance, but I think that he would agree with me, and that all hon. Members who have sat here throughout the debate will agree, that certainly from the point of view of quality it has been an extremely interesting debate. I thought we had—if I may be allowed to say so—two absolute gems of sayings of the week, the definition of the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) as the George Orwell of Nuneaton, a saying to my mind, equalled by only the description by my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer) of computers as "polygamous rather than monogamous". I am not sure what it had to do with the debate but it seemed a most magnificent saying.
This is not the first time that I have had the pleasure of speaking in a debate initiated by the George Orwell of Nuneaton on the subject of the control of personal information. The last time, he may remember, we debated this very same subject we did so between 6.25 a.m. and 7.15 a.m. at the end of a debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. Certainly both on that occasion and on this occasion I listened with great interest to the very well-informed speech he made.
I am much aware of the fact that he has made a very close study of this subject. He has been extremely persistent in his advocacy of the need for control of the collection of personal information, the need for control of the use to which information stored by computer is used. I join the hon. Member for Accrington in congratulating the hon. Member for Nuneaton upon the pertinacity with which he has pursued that campaign. He himself said at one stage that these matters required publicity. Certainly the hon. Gentleman has done his best to make sure that the public is aware of the problems in this area.
I should also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West upon his speech, which also stressed and properly stressed, the concern which people have about the problems of the use to which personal information is put.
I only wish, in many ways, in view of the standard of the quality of this debate, that I could this afternoon be rather more forthcoming in my views upon this Bill than I shall be able to be for reasons which I shall explain in a moment.
Listening to the debate, it seems to me that the real concern of the hon. Member for Nuneaton is the very amount of that collection of personal information which today is part of our life in a modern-day society, concern as to the effect which can be caused if that information is not accurate, and, particularly, concern and fear that the use to which that information may be put may be for purposes other than that for which it was collected.
There was the example which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West gave. I think he spoke of a "good clean list" built up by a book firm. I think he would accept that that has nothing to do with computers as such. It is merely a growing practice, about which he was expressing concern, whereby information obtained by one commercial undertaking can be used by another undertaking for some other purpose.
It seems to me, therefore, that this problem exists in isolation from the computer. This Bill does not deal with computers as such. It deals with data banks handling personal information relating to more than 100,000 individuals. It seems that all that the computer has done in this field is to accelerate what was in any event happening in a twentieth century industrialised society.
As the hon. Member for Accrington said, what the computer has done is to make simpler the collection and holding of vast amounts of personal information; it has made simpler the method of transfer and made the information far more speedily available. I repeat that the Government's view is that the problem is the same and that what the computer has done is to bring to the fore the degree of the problem.
The problem is the safeguarding of information, the security of the files in which the information is contained, and the integrity of those who have the keys, whether they be manual keys or computer keys, to the places where the information is stored. Above all, the


problem is the use of that information in a way which appears to people to interfere with what they believe are their rights to privacy. It is because the Government, and the preceding Government, recognised this concern that the whole question of privacy was referred to a Committee under the Chairmanship of Mr. Kenneth Younger.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: The hon. and learned Gentleman is right in saying that the main contribution of the computer is to accelerate the development of the whole process, but does he not agree that the unique contribution of the computer is that it permits the integration of many files, which previously was not administratively possible, and that the integration of these files presents a new threat to privacy?

Mr. Carlisle: I agree with that, but presumably the integration of the files could be achieved eventually by manual means. I said that the computer had made simpler the collection and transfer of the information. I concede that it has made simpler the building up of a complete profile of a particular individual from pieces of information which before would have been kept separate.

Dr. Glyn: Does not my hon. and learned Friend agree that what is important is not so much the independent outside organisations who use computers but how much right the Government have to use computerised information to interfere with the privacy and rights of individual citizens?

Mr. Carlisle: I am coming to my hon. Friend's point. As I said, it was because this is part of the wider problem of privacy that the previous Government referred this matter to the Younger Committee.
The hon. Member for Nuneaton and many other hon. Members raised both with the previous Government and with the present Government on many occasions the question why the Younger Committee had been limited to the private sector and did not include the public sector. Not only is the Younger Committee looking at privacy in the private sector, but the Prime Minister, shortly after taking office, set up an interdepartmental group under the leadership

of the Home Office to make a comprehensive survey of the categories of personal information held or likely to be held in the computer system of Government Departments and the rules governing its storage and use. That information is contained in an Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to the hon. Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Joyce Butler).
This is not the first time we have seen the Bill—I compliment the hon. Member for Nuneaton again on his pertinacity—for the hon. Member has published it before. This time we have had the great advantage of having a debate in which he and other hon. Members have been able to express their concern. I do not think that the Bill was entirely lost last time. It was not then discussed in the House, but its provisions were examined within Government Departments. Much more important, I believe that they have been examined by the Younger Committee in its review of the whole law of privacy. The hon. Member has told us that he gave oral evidence to that Committee. I am sure that he then took the opportunity of explaining the types of safeguard that he wished to see.
It was the expression of concern about this matter that led to the setting up of the Younger Committee and the interdepartmental committee on the use of computers in Government hands. My reason for not wishing to say anything about the merits of the Bill is concerned with the question of timing. I am told that the Younger Committee, which has been carrying out this fundamental review of the whole question of privacy as it affects the private sector, is to report to the Home Secretary within the next few weeks. I understand that the review being carried out under Home Office chairmanship concerning the use of computers by the Government has also been completed and will shortly be in the hands of the Home Secretary.
Arrangements will be put in hand for the publication of the Younger Report, and the Government must have the opportunity of considering it fully, together with the report of the interdepartmental body of officials, in order to decide what, if any, legislative action ought then to be taken. I assure the House that the reports will be examined from the point of view of the bearing


they have upon each other, and if, in the light of that examination, the Government conclude that further safeguards are required for the protection of personal information in data banks, they will not hesitate to take whatever measures may be necessary to achieve that end.
It would not be right for me, as a Minister, to comment upon the Bill's method of approach before I have had the opportunity to consider the report of the experienced committee set up by the previous Administration but reporting to this one.
It is always simple for any Minister, whether in Committee or on the Floor of the House, to use the time-honoured defence, "This is not a suitable Bill for this type of reform", or, "This is not the appropriate moment to introduce this Measure," but I urge the House to accept that we are now being asked to give a Second Reading to a Bill which will establish substantial controls over the whole range of data banks in both the public and the private sector. We are being asked to do this at a moment when we are expecting to receive an authoritative independent review of the need for such controls. I am sure the hon. Gentleman would accept the force of the argument that we cannot invite the House to pass a Bill of this kind immediately in advance of the receipt of that report.
I say this not because I do not share much of the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Nuneaton. Indeed the fact that we have had this debate this afternoon will be a further source of information which can be considered by the Home Office when it considers these matters, following the review which it is about to receive. We wish to ensure that the very effectiveness of the computer—and the hon. Gentleman has always been careful to make clear that he does not oppose the computer as such—does not make its use easily able to be abused for other purposes.
We must remember that there are many means by which the storage of information can be protected from unauthorised disclosure. I gather that there are a number of proven techniques available which can be used in computers to prevent the unauthorised use of material and that these can be applied at the stages of input, storage and output. It is true

that these techniques cannot provide an unbreachable security, but they can make the task of penetration difficult and can bring back the situation more to what exists today when the security and safeguarding of the individual file rely in the end on the integrity of the man responsible for keeping the file.
I know that the hon. Member for Nuneaton will be a little disappointed that I have been unable to be a little more forthcoming about the Bill, but I ask him to consider the strength of the argument which I have advanced. No Government could give encouragement to a Bill such as this, however well intentioned and well drafted, at a time when they are just about to receive a report on this subject from an authoritative body set up for that very purpose. I hope the hon. Gentleman will feel that, having aired the Bill as he has today and having had the advantage of support from hon. Members in all parts of the House, and also having had my undertaking that we propose to look at the matter in the light of all the matters which are presented to us by the review body so that we may see what further safeguards are needed to ensure that information is not abused, this debate has achieved his purposes, even though this Bill may make no further progress this Session.

3.55 p.m.

Mr. Ernle Money: The whole House owes a debt of gratitude to the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) for having acted as a personal watchdog over a long period of time against the encroachments of this potential monster. It is fair to say that the computer itself need not necessarily be a monster, as seemed to be suggested by some speeches in this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. John Page) is right when he says that it has many useful functions in dealing with medical, population, planing and other statistics.
There are four matters to which I wish to draw specific attention. The first was referred to by the hon. Member for Accrington (Mr. Arthur Davidson), and it is the element of de-personalisation involved in the computer. I get more and more frightened by the de-personalisation of certain aspects of our life. I accept that the postal code may be a necessary


aid to the Post Office, as my right hon. Friend the Minister for Posts and Telecommunications said in answer to a supplementary question on Monday. Nevertheless it is humiliating to have to use a conglomeration of letters and figures where once we used the address, "The House of Commons, Westminster". However, bringing an individual down to a series of dots which are available to a large number of others for them to use in their own way has an element of considerable danger.
In his philosophical speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Selwyn Gummer) referred to the significance of the name in primitive culture. Hon. Members may recall that T. S. Eliot said in "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" that a cat has three separate names. He has the name given him by his owner. He has the official name by which he is known to other cats. Finally he has the secret, special name which is only known to himself because it is so important that it can be known only to himself. There is an element of this in each of us, and there is something personal about that aspect of our own information. The fact that it is bandied around sometimes on commercial terms, sometimes on reckless terms by computers, has a sinister background to it.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister of State, when the Government consider the Younger Committee Report, to put one important point before his right hon. and hon. Friends. To what extent is it right that this House should now take control of the kind of information which is being sought and put into computers? I am worried by the fact that so much information put out on behalf of theGovernment—I have in mind the Census, for example—never comes before this House for hon. Members to consider the form of questions to be asked.
There is also, the extent to which computer information should be used in the form of the estoppel doctrine in law, as a shield only and not as a spear. Too often commercial information which is needed to protect is taken out on the aggressive side. That was inherent in

much that was said by the hon. Member for Nuneaton.
There is the sinister ability of the computer to fill in. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West mentioned the capacity of the computer to change things without the public knowing. Perhaps the best example at the moment is the pictures that we are getting from the moon. In many cases they are being improved because the computer knows what ought to be going on in other parts of the picture. In other words, there is not a perfect picture in the form of visual reproduction. The computer is adding what it knows should be in the picture. This is probably inherent in what my hon. Friend said about the Leader of the Opposition being in a position where what he said could be changed or distorted or could have a different emphasis put on it. It would be possible to say in those circumstances that one could have made an improved Leader of the Opposition by filling in the bits that we find worrying about the right hon. Gentleman. But perhaps that is a doctrine of too much perfection in the circumstances.
The lesson which comes from the Bill is that even though, with the Younger Committee about to report, it may not be acceptable to the Government in its present form, there is an issue which troubles the individual. It is an issue about which the House has shown itself to be deeply concerned. Above all, it is an issue which private citizens in the form of people such as the hon. Member for Nuneaton and Government Departments as such will be watching constantly.
Without taking the matter too far——

It being Four o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday next.

OWNER-OCCUPATION (HELP FOR PRIVATE LANDLORDS' TENANTS TO PURCHASE) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

ENDANGERED SPECIES PROTECTION BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

HEALTH EDUCATION (TELEVISION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday 5th May.

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) ACT 1962 AMENDMENT BELL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

LEGAL AID AND ADVICE (LOCAL LEGAL CENTRES) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

PASSENGER FARES (LONDON) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

IMPORTS (MARKING OF ORIGIN) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

POWER-BOATS (REGULATION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

INLAND WATERWAYS (IMPROVEMENT OF NAVIGATION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

STUDENT UNIONS (REGISTRATION) BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [25th February].

Hon. Members: Object.

Debate further adjourned till Friday next.

ABOLITION OF GAZUMPING AND KINDRED PRACTICES BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

MEDICAL SERVICES (REFERRAL) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

TRANSPLANTS OF HUMAN ORGANS BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

ANTI-DISCRIMINATION BILL

Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Second Reading [28th January].

Hon. Members: Object.

Debate further adjourned till Friday next.

CIGARETTES (PROHIBITION OF ADVERTISING) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

PROTECTION OF OTTERS (No. 2) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

PUBLIC ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Hon. Members: Object.

Second Reading deferred till Friday next.

SUNDAY THEATRE (No. 2) BILL [Lords]

Ordered,
That Standing Committee C be discharged from considering the Sunday Theatre (No. 2) Bill [Lords] and that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Hugh Jenkins.]

Mr. Speaker: Committee what day?

Mr. Hugh Jenkins: Now, Sir.

Mr. Speaker: I am bound to point out to the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Hugh Jenkins) that this is unusual and, I think, inconvenient as hon. Members have had no warning. Nevertheless, I will put the Question to the House.

Question, That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee, put and agreed to.

Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.

Motion made and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.

EXPENDITURE

Ordered,
That Mr. John Nott be discharged from the Expenditure Committee and that Mr. Wilfred Proudfoot be added.—[Mr. Rossi.]

MOTORWAY ROUTES (FOG)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Rossi.]

4.6 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Carol Mather.

Mr. Carol Mather: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you tell me whether the debate continues until half-past Four, or whether it will continue for half an hour from now?

Mr. Speaker: The debate will continue for 30 minutes from the time when I called the hon. Member—about 29½ minutes from now.

Mr. Mather: The matter that I wish to raise this afternoon is that of multiple crashes on motorways. I want to consider how they have occurred, and what we can do about them, because the number of crashes has escalated considerably during the last few months. In all questions of this kind there are two ways in which one can tackle the problem. There is, first, the short-term, immediate action that one can take. Secondly, there is the long-term aspect of planning to avoid these terrible disasters.
There is no doubt that the number of these accidents has escalated during the last year. In fact, the largest three disasters so far have occurred during the last six months. The first was on 13th December, 1971, on the M6 at Warrington, when 94 vehicles were involved, 11 people were killed, and 10 were injured. The second was on 29th November, 1971, on the M1 at Luton, when 70 vehicles were involved, nine people were killed, and 50 injured. The third was on 16th March, 1972, on the M1 near Ridgmont, when 200 vehicles were involved, nine people were killed, and 51 injured.
The extraordinary thing about these accidents is that most of them have been caused by fog, and it is clear that the type of fog by which they have been caused is not the overall blanket of fog over the country, but sudden patches of


fog in certain geographical positions, what one can call fog walls. One comes into these fog walls quite suddenly. They have sharp edges. One seldom gets any warning of them. When in them, one can see less than 50 yards ahead. Anyone who has driven into these conditions knows the feeling. The driver becomes disoriented and cannot judge his speed or distance. Indeed, he dare not take his eyes off the road to look at his speedometer to see what speed he is doing.
One comes across these conditions where motorways cross rivers, streams or marshy areas, usually in shallow valleys. There are certain well-known places where these conditions occur. For instance, there have been five disasters where the Woodthorpe Stream crosses the M1 near Bolsover, there have been three where the River Don crosses the A1 near Doncaster, another three where the River Erewash crosses the M1 at Nottingham, a further three where the River Aire crosses the M1 at Pontefract, four on the M6 near the Manchester Ship Canal, in the Warrington area, and a further four where the River Douglas crosses the M6near Wigan.
These disaster points are now becoming well known. Each further accident is virtually a carbon copy of the previous one. But information on conditions of this kind is scanty. On 27th March, I ask my hon. Friend how many accidents on motorways in the last five years had been attributable to fog walls, and his answer was that the accident statistics do not distinguish between fog walls and other kinds of fog.
Fortunately, there is a group, the M25 Action Group, which has been doing some work on the matter. Mr. R. O. Richards, a member of that group, has done a unique study of the circumstances in which fog wall conditions develop across the country. In fact, the figures which I gave were his. He has made a study countrywide on motorways and a special study in the Mole Valley through which the M25 is shortly to run.
It has been estimated that, since the beginning of 1967, the total number of fog disaster days on motorways has been 26, and of these 21, or 80 per cent., were cause by fog walls. Moreover, 65 per cent. occurred at recognisable disaster points. The total number of multiple

fog accidents since 1967 in which people have been killed is 50, of which 46, or 92 per cent., took place in fog wall conditions.
The M1 on its section between Nottingham and Sheffield passes through several fog wall points. Six accidents have taken place there in recent years as a result of fog wall conditions. The country further to the east is different. It is not the undulating type of country in which such conditions occur but is flatter, and in this sort of country such conditions do not develop. If more had been known about these conditions before the motorway was planned, it could have been built further to the east, and many of the accidents probably avoided.
I can illustrate the difference between general fog conditions and the conditions which I am trying to describe by reference to circumstances in the Thames Valley. In 1965, there were two days of dense fog when visibility was only about 10 yards. There were many crashes, but for the most part they were bumper-to-bumper crashes, damage to wings and the like, but no one was killed. One has only to compare that with the fog wall accident which took place at Ridgmont, with nine people killed. If yardsticks published by the road research laboratory are used, the cost of that accident at Ridgmont on 16th March can be estimated at £250,000. The M1 was blocked for 15 hours on end.
The blame has been put largely on motorists, and I recognise that motorists must take a fair share of the blame. A police report quoted in the A.A. publication, Drive is an example of this. It states that a police officer said:
As we approached the accident in fog with blue light going and both of us hanging out of the car windows trying to slow traffic down cars overtook us at 60 m.p.h. on both sides. We could hear them crunching into the wreckage ahead.
It is true that there is an appalling amount of recklessness on the part of drivers in these conditions, but I do not know whether all this blame is entirely fair. The Ridgmont incident did not take place at night but in broad day-night—at 8.20 a.m.—and many vehicles involved in the crash had their sun visors down. Fog warning lights would not have operated in that case. It is extremely difficult when driving in broad


daylight suddenly to go into a fog wall—one is simply asking for disaster then.
Many short-term solutions have been suggested, such as stiffer tests or, possibly, driving tests for motorway conditions; publication of a fog code, which I believe my hon. Friend is considering, to give drivers more guidance on these conditions. The obligatory use of headlights is another suggestion, and another is four-way flashers on individual vehicles which can be switched on when driving through fog. The use of high intensity rear lights is also suggested.
Of two permanent suggestions, one is overhead lights along sections of motor way where these conditions occur, and these would be very expensive, and the other is warning lights mounted on gantries such as one gets on the later stages of the M4 where it comes into London. But, as I have said, most of these fog wall accidents have taken place in day light hours, so that overhead lights would not have helped very much.
Another solution that I should like to put to my hon. Friend is the need very carefully to consider these conditions when planning future motorway routes. I take the M25 London South Orbital Motorway as an example. It runs through the southern part of my constituency. The Leatherhead-Cobham stretch, which is just north of Leatherhead, passes through the Mole Valley for one and quarter miles at Stoke d'Abernon. An inquiry was held last summer into this motorway route, and at the inquiry the Department admitted under cross-examination that no study of fog conditions had been made. Yet, at the same time, there is strong evidence against this route on grounds of fog.
This particular stretch of one and a quarter miles is one of the locations in the country where fog walls occur. Mr. Richards produce at the inquiry at great mass of evidence of these conditions, and this evidence was specially commended by the inspector. In this area during one period of 12 months there were no fewer than seven occasions when fog wall conditions prevailed on this crossing point. In every case, they occurred during the morning rush hours—daylight hours.
If one gets to higher ground conditions are different. This particular motorway

route was located in the Mole Valley very recently. There had been a route further south, but it was thought at the time that this route was slightly shorter and had slightly easier gradients. But I hope that in planning this route, the engineers have not made a very big mistake.
There is a case, of course, on grounds of amenity, which is a separate question. But, arising out of amenity, during the public inquiry in the summer the Department representatives said that the motorway would be inconspicuous at the elevations and along the route it travelled. But it passes through an area of unique amenity value, with a Saxon church, a Tudor manor house, and the Yehudi Menuhin School of Music. The whole area makes up a place of pilgrimage for people in this country and for many foreign tourists. If one is to believe reports that the Department's working party is to recommend grantries and overhead lights, they of course, would completely suburbanise this rural environment.
I has been suggested that if we had known about this problem and had been able to plan ahead, about three-quarters of the motorway deaths could have been avoided. I urge my hon. Friend to look into this question with great care. I am sure that in this case prevention can be better than cure, and in many other cases yet to come.

4.21 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Eldon Griffiths): My hon. Friend the Member for Esher (Mr. Mather) has always spoken up clearly and eloquently on behalf of the interests of his constituents. I very much agree with him in the message which I understand him to be offering, namely, that prevention is better than cure in these matters.
I am not in the least surprised that in that context he made reference to the current proposals for the route to be taken by the M25 from east of Leatherhead to Wisley along the valley of the Mole. My hon. Friend will understand that as we are in the period between the public inquiry and the decision still to be taken by my right hon. Friend, I am severely limited in what I may say about that subject.


I am, however, aware of the detailed evidence on the incidence of fog in the Mole Valley which was collected on behalf of the M25 Action Group and presented at the inquiry. I and some of my colleagues have had a personal letter from Sir Ronald Harris. I have given it personal attention. I should like my hon. Friend to know that we have looked into the fog statistics that have been collected in the area with very great care. I should also say that I do not accept for one moment the somewhat exaggerated language about the Mole Valley becoming another Death Valley. But it would not be a breach of confidence to say that the inspector who held the inquiry made it clear in his report that we should be unwise to disregard the warnings that were given about fog incidence. I assure my hon. Friend that these warnings will not be disregarded. We take them very seriously. More than that, in the circumstances, it would be wrong for me to say today.
I should, however, say something about the many factors, including fog, that are taken into account in planning routes for motorways such as that. First, we have to be satisfied as to the purposes to be served by a new motorway. For what traffic on our present road network is it intended to cater? Where does it want to get to and where from? What is the likely volume of traffic over a span of years ahead, well into the 1990's? What benefits will the availability of the new motorway bring to the environment of otherwise permanently congested residential, shopping and industrial areas, and including that of historic towns which lie adjacent to it?
Only when all this information has been assembled and assessed can we decide on the feasibility of possible routes. It is against this comprehensive background that evidence of likely fog conditions along possible alternative routes needs to be examined. I can assure my hon. Friend that this is being done in respect of the Mole Valley.
I cannot accept that fog alone is necessarily or likely to be the only or overriding factor. The science of meteorology is not yet an exact science. The knowledge and understanding of conditions which causes fog in the vicinity of rivers, hill fogs and still less so-called

fog walls, does not exist to the extent that it is possible to identify precisely fog-prone localities other than from direct observations. Here I pay tribute to the devoted work done by Mr. Richards in the Mole Valley for the year from 31st May, 1970.
Nevertheless, I am advised that observations over any period less than about five years would most likely be insufficient to provide information of real value in determining the least fog-prone route available. I have looked into the Meteorological Office records, but they are clearly insufficient for this purpose because they come from a limited number of stations and only 24 in the British Isles provide hourly reports. There are less frequent reports four or five times daily from a greater number of stations and these were used by the Road Research Laboratory in a study of thick fog and its effect on traffic flow and accidents. I shall be happy to send a copy of that publication to my hon. Friend.
The general conclusion was that such thick fog is relatively infrequent, patchy, rarely widespread and of short duration but the data abouts its effect on accidents are still too scanty to admit of serious analysis. Nevertheless, we have fed the information in existence through the computer and on the basis of the results we shall be considering a number of special safety measures on stretches particularly liable to fog accidents. The Meteorological Office has now installed an additional 47 stations on existing motorways to measure incidence of fog.
Further information is coming forward and we shall be studying it with great care. Without a vast increase in the number of recording points and observations over a long period it is impossible to provide accurate information for every area where a new motorway may be built. The fog-free motorway in British conditions is, I regret to say, a physical impossibility.
What are the Government doing to prevent these tragic accidents? We are operating on this in three respects—first, on the road; second, on the vehicle; and third and most important, on the driver. On the motorway we are introducing as fast as we can a new and highly sophisticated automatic motorway signalling


system. This is designed to help not merely in fog but at all times of danger. My hon. Friend may know that at the end of last month the first phase of the new national motorway signalling system was switched on. At present it operates over 85 miles of the M.6 and M.62 motorways providing drivers with advice about conditions ahead. By the end of this year the signalling system will be extended over 320 miles and it will be extremely helpful during the winter in fog conditions.
I said that we are also operating on the vehicles. All obligatory red rear lamps now have to comply with the highest British Standard specification and drivers can, if they wish, fit special rear fog lamps. My right hon. Friend is now seeking powers to require day time use of lights in poor visibility and, as my hon. Friend knows, heavy goods vehicles are being required to bear special reflective rear markings which have proved valuable. Finally, we are seeking to operate on drivers. This is a matter mainly of publicity through the Highway Code and the Driving Manual, seeking to teach drivers the elementary rules for driving safely in fog and at all other times. We have in mind a fog code, and I expect that my right hon. Friend will, at an appropriate time, publish it and make it widely known throughout the country.
We have other measures very much in mind. For example, we may install more reflective studs on the road surface of the more fog-prone stretches of the motorway. I doubt whether they would be an environmental instrusion. They might be of great help to the driver trying to find his position on the road in fog conditions. On a bigger issue, we are studying, and will continue to study, the possible value of lighting stretches of motorway. I accept my hon. Friend's point that lights can prove to be a suburbanising intrusion on the landscape of a lovely area. I assure him that we shall bear this point in mind in considering the route about which he complains. Lighting is now being installed on the M62 over the Pennines, and this will give us a good deal of information about its effectiveness and intrusiveness.
We have also been looking to the future. The Road Research Laboratory

has done a great deal of pioneer work on aids to drivers in fog conditions. It has made good progress with a new device to enable a vehicle's speed on the speedometer to be seen ahead of the driver through the windscreen so that he does not have to keep taking his eye from the foggy road ahead and looking at the instruments on his panel. A prototype of this new device is already being tested. A new system of radio-transmitted verbal warnings is under study. This is at an early stage, but it offers exciting prospects should it prove feasible.
Another device—and an important one is a station-keeping indicator which will tell drivers by a visible, optical focusing arrangement when they are getting too close in fog to the vehicle ahead. The device, too, shows promise. My Department will consider all the ideas submitted by the public. We have it very much in mind to consider the pros and cons of mandatory separation districts or of making the new advisory speed limits mandatory.

Mr. Mather: We are talking about preventing accidents and death, but I hope that my hon. Friend will take very seriously the question of the environment and the effect of lights, in particular, on it. I was surprised to hear what my hon. Friend said about the Pennine route.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: There is always a balance. There is no doubt that lighting on a motorway running through a beautiful area can be an intrusion to those who live there. But, equally, there is no doubt that to the large number of people who must travel along that road, lighting can be an agent in saving their lives. It is a difficult balance of one right with another right, and we shall consider it.
While the Government can operate by trying to make the roads safer and by putting in lighting and crash barriers and other devices, and while they can, with industry, operate on the motor car by improving the instrumentation and safety features of the car, in the end the degree of safety on the roads, particularly in fog conditions, is largely the responsibility of the driving public. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher drew attention to an incident in which he saw people speeding past in an irresponsible fashion while fog wall conditions existed.


I share my hon. Friend's sense of dismay at that.
I conclude by reiterating my undertaking that we shall consider very carefully the fog factors in the design and routing of the motorway in question. But I hope that my hon. Friend will join me in urging all those who drive on our

roads in fog conditions to drive within their limits and not too close to the car ahead. If they are unable to meet the reasonable conditions of safety, the best that they can do is to stay at home.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes to Five o clock.